


I'll Tell You My Sins (and you can write me a tragedy)

by lavendersblues (lonely_lovebird)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Season/Series 14, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant through 13x22, Do not post to another site, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Kid Fic, M/M, Nephilim, Past Rowena/Gabriel, Resolved Romantic Tension, Time Travel, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, and cthulhu is now a thing, angels are still the bad guys, if you are reading this anywhere other than archive of our own it has been stolen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 15:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonely_lovebird/pseuds/lavendersblues
Summary: “Woah, hold up! Future? They’re from the future?! When did our lives turn into the Back to the Future trilogy? First dad’s old man from 1950 and now some pup kids from…” Dean squinted as if trying to asses the year the pair were from by their clothing but they had arrived in nondescript plaid and denim, and now dressed in clothing snapped up by Gabriel, they looked even more plain and ordinary.“2042,” the girl added in a grating sing-song voice.“2042?That’s not a real year!” Dean protested, throwing his hands up.---Jack opens a cupboard in the bunker one morning, and a pair of oddly familiar teenagers fall out - who bring not only secrets that change both Dean and Sam's perspectives, but also another world of trouble.





	1. The Story

**Author's Note:**

> This is only canon compliant through 13x22 so the AU Hunters are still around but no Michael or Lucifer. All dimension hopping mechanics have been stolen from Doctor Who. Implied mpreg. Minor Original Character "Death" that doesn't last long because this is Supernatural. Lots and lots of descriptions of blood and violence, but I think it doesn't exceed the gore in the show. But you've been warned.
> 
> This was my love letter to my Supernatural ships borrowing a well beloved trope from multiple fandom sources, Back to the Future, Charmed, Doctor Who... I hope you enjoy the ride!
> 
> Thanks to [KatieComma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma) for the Beta!

The late autumn leaves were spread across the frostbitten ground, and they crunched ominously underneath boot clad feet. Through the dusky light of a full moon a tall girl, who couldn’t have been older than seventeen, pushed her way through the underbrush with hunched shoulders and a sour expression. Her hair was long, a soft sandy brown, and it trailed across the branches ethereally as she passed, like lingering lovers fingers.

Behind her followed a shorter, somewhat stockier figure - an older boy with an equally morose expression. He watched with shifting blue eyes in every direction, muscling past the branches that swung towards him - whipping back and forth in the wake of his compatriot.

When a branch smacked him in the face, his calm demeanor snapped.

“Damnit JJ!” He snarled, rubbing at the red welt across his nose. The taller girl whirled around looking sheepish, and as she spun her hair snagged a wayward branch yanking her head down. She let out a strangled yell and clutched her hair desperately.

With a sigh, their third member, a tall and lean figure with swooping hair and kind eyes, waved his hand and with a burst of golden light the stinging red mark disappeared and JJ’s hair released the tree.

Jack Kline Winchester pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. He hadn’t wanted to take his cousins out on a hunting trip with the threat of the Sisterhood of the Nether hovering over all their heads. But his fathers had been adamant that Henry and JJ be kept away from the thick of it, so without much of a choice, Jack herded Henry and JJ into the old beater of Castiel’s and took them out on a hunt for a wendigo his dad had said was hunting somewhere outside of Lincoln.

“JJ, if your hair is going to be a problem you should tie it up,” Henry snapped, glowering up at the the taller girl. JJ rolled her eyes before gathering her hair into her hands and deftly twisting it into a knot that she held in place with a pin that seemed to miraculously appear from her pockets.

“Sorry you can’t seem to watch where you’re going H,” she snapped back, voice laced heavy with sarcasm. “Did Jack heal your boo-boo?” 

“Shut up, jerk,” Henry snarled.

“Bitch,” came the cool and sing-song reply.

“Enough!” Jack grit his teeth and clenched his fists. They were getting nowhere, and he had no idea what to do with arguing teenagers. Henry was an adult in the loosest sense of the term at nineteen but he continued to pick fights with JJ at every chance. Fighting the Host of Michael had been easier than taking Henry and JJ on a hunt without their parents.

The two teenagers had the decency to look sheepish at least, but Jack wasn’t surprised that there was no forthcoming apology. He was only twenty-five but when they acted like childish brats, he felt like he was eons older than the other two Nephilim. 

“Dad wanted me to take you on a hunting trip, but I’m not sure there even is a wendigo, and if you both don’t stop I’m going to dump you out here and go back to the motel without you.” Jack stared at them as they looked guilty and shifted nervously. “It would be a good opportunity for you to either learn how to fly or learn how to work together - I’m not picky.”

The reaction was instantaneous, the pair looked up sharply and began to argue, talking over each other loudly and angrily --

“He’s always been a bitch about --”

“She’s a little girly-girl with --”

“-- and he always holds his age over me --”

“-- can’t even hold a gun let alone smite a  _ demon _ \--”

“-- And of course he brings  _ that  _ up!”

With a flutter of wings and an exasperated sigh, Jack was gone, cutting off the argument and leaving the duo speechless in the silence. JJ reeled back, staring at the space that Jack had occupied with a mixed expression of anger and jealousy.

“I hate it when he does that,” she spit, turning her back on where Jack had been.

Henry rolled his eyes, looking back towards where they had come, the town warm on the edges of his senses, the gathered souls acting like his guiding light, like a flame he could feel in the distance. He’d been working with his dad on integrating his powers into his survival skills, but they seemed to be inaccessible in this instant, his stress and anxiety causing them to sputter out.

“I know the town is that way, so we might as well start walking,” he finally said, taking off, the leaves and bracken crunching beneath his heavy boots. He heard JJ moan and begin to follow after several long seconds.

“I should be able to do what Jack does,” JJ moaned from behind. “But I can’t! It’s not fair.”

Henry rolled his eyes, shoving past another branch. “Yeah, me too! But you don't see me bitching about it. You didn’t have to grow up as fast as Jack, dumbass. And your dad is good, but he’s not Lucifer good.”

“I could kick your ass for that,” JJ snarked, her voice sounding farther behind. “My father is definitely as good as his dick of an older brother.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

There was only silence in reply. Henry scowled. “What, too afraid to take me up on the challenge?” He spun on his heel to give JJ a piece of his mind, and his stomach plummeted.

JJ was on the ground in a sprawled heap. Her hair, loose from its bun, was pooled around her, the long locks blending with the dead foliage. A woman loomed over her body, the silver glint of an angel blade in her hands. 

Henry panicked.

He opened his mouth to scream, a choked - “Jack!” making it out before a hand clamped down over his lips, and another pair caught him by the elbows, lifting him from the ground. He struggled against the vice-like grip of the angels, kicking out with his feet and jerking his entire body with all his might - to no avail.

He watched in horror as they drug JJ’s limp body and pulled him along with, towards a destination unknown.

_ Jack, _ he prayed desperately as the unfamiliar women moved them closer to certain doom,  _ Please help us. _

 

 

 

Dean groaned as he shuffled into the kitchen, his head pounding. The Apocalypse World hunters hadn’t stopped the party until most of them were too drunk to see straight. Dean hadn’t meant to try and keep up, but his pride wouldn’t let him stop until  _ Maggie, _ of all people, had drunk him under the table.

He stumbled to the coffee pot and winced when he heard Sam’s chuckle from across the room.

“You look like shit,” Sam chuckled, sipping at his own cup of coffee. “You look worse than Gabriel, and that’s saying something since he just narrowly avoided death for a second time.”

“How is the jackass doing?” Dean asked, sipping at the coffee before ambling over to sit across from his brother. Sam grimaced, his massive fingers tightening around his mug quickly, like a spasm, as he shifted and looked back at his laptop with an awkward air.

“Well he and  _ Rowena _ seem to have taken in with each other…” He pulled a face and Dean returned the sentiment.

“Ugh, I did not need that mental image,” he grumbled, taking another swallow of the bitter liquid. “A witch and an Archangel - better hope we don’t end up with another Jack.”

Sam’s lips thinned and he closed his laptop with a heavy click. His nostrils flared and Dean furrowed his brow - he’d hit a nerve but Dean couldn’t figure out which nerve. He took a second to try and evaluate what had pushed Sam’s buttons but gave up as his head throbbed and he shrugged it off.

His brother was just being a bitch, he could deal with it later.

Jack wandered in at that moment, breaking the terse, silent atmosphere. He didn’t seem to notice the way Sam’s lips were pressed together tightly or how Dean cradled his head gingerly, as he bounded over to the brothers with a beaming smile.

“Good morning!” Jack exclaimed.

“Woah, kid!” Dean threw a hand up. “Lower the volume, some of us don’t have angel alcohol resistance.”

Jack squinted down at Dean whose head was pressed firmly between the heels of both of his hands then, and he seemed to be puzzling out what was wrong with the elder Winchester. He glanced at Sam who gave him a wry smile.

“He’s hungover, Jack.”

“Oh!” Jack’s face lit up with recognition. “A hangover is caused by alcohol! Mary told me about them when we were staying with the hunters in the other world.” He turned to Dean with extended fingers. “I can fix that for you, Dean.”

Dean waved his hand off quickly. “Thanks kid, but I deserve it. It’s like learning a lesson with a hot stove, if there’s no consequences I won’t remember not to do it again.” His tone was rough but Sam could see the underlying hints of affection.

“But...people have hangovers all the time,” Jack observed, moving across the kitchen to start digging through the cupboards for chocolate. “And that doesn’t stop them from drinking again in the future. I don’t understand how self-inflicted pain can teach a lesson if it doesn’t deter anyone from future pain inducing endeavors.”

Sam snorted softly and watched as Dean opened his mouth to respond, but was cut short as Jack opened the last cupboard - the tallest one they’d been using as a pantry - and two flailing bodies tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and exclamations.

Sam jumped to his feet, his laptop clattering as he shoved it aside quickly and he reached for his gun. Dean was right behind him, wincing all the way, as Jack stood stock still and stared down at the bruised and bloody bodies at his feet with a squint and a head tilt.

“They’re not hunters from the other world,” Jack remarked with little concern.

“Jack!” Sam hissed. “Get back here.” He tugged gently on Jack’s elbow and the Nephilim stepped away, giving the tangle of limbs more space to get untangled. The tallest seemed unconscious and with Jack out of the way, Sam could finally get a decent look. The girl was clearly young - probably only sixteen or seventeen - and had apparently suffered some kind of massive head wound that had bled into her long hair, matting it to her face and neck.

The kid who was still moving was clinging to her desperately, and as he pulled away Sam could see tear tracks down his cheeks. He was covered in blood from what seemed like a long cut across the front of his neck that was no longer visible - as if healed. His hair was dark, and his eyes were a startling dark green. He scrambled away from Sam and Dean with wide eyes and an expression of panic, dragging the unconscious girl’s arm with him, stretching it out above her head.

“Don’t touch her!” He snapped as Sam reached down to try and check the unconscious girl’s pulse. Sam pulled his hand away quickly, palm up in the universal sign of surrender. He quickly flicked the safety of his gun back on before stashing it in the waist of his jeans as he crouched down to the floor. The boy, who didn’t look much older than Jack’s physical appearance, was still trying to cling to the girl, his hands clutching her arm desperately.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice was soft, like he was approaching a wounded animal - which he supposed wounded humans were in a way. “It’s okay, I just want to help you and see if she’s…” He trailed off. 

“She’s alive,” Jack piped up from the side quickly. “I can hear her heartbeat. I think she’s just unconscious, her head wound isn’t bleeding anymore either.”

Sam sighed with relief before turning back to the boy. “We don’t want to hurt you, but we need to know how you got in the bunker.”

They boy clenched his jaw shut as he shook his head. “I can’t… I can’t explain that.”

Dean’s eyes instantly iced over and the safety of his gun made an audible click. “This bunker is warded to hell and back, nothing should be able to get in.” The boy paled, but he held his ground. Dean continued, one eyebrow cocked. “So either you explain or I put a bullet between your eyes.”

“I  _ can’t.” _

Dean’s mouth tilted up in the dark smirk he’d developed in Purgatory. Sam could see his finger twitch towards the trigger but a hand landed heavily on Dean’s arm, yanking him around and the shot went wild, lodging into the floor as Cas turned Dean away from the wounded newcomers on the floor.

“Cas, what the hell?!”

“Dean, don’t.” Castiel warned, as he glanced over Dean’s shoulders at the frightened yet defiant face of the boy. 

Sam decided that Cas could handle his brother and he returned his attention to the girl who was still unconscious despite the commotion. He kept one ear on his brother as he focused on the fiery tempered young man.

“Hey,” Sam smiled softly, “My name’s Sam. Sam Winchester. What’s your name?”

“...Henry.” Sam’s eyebrows jumped slightly at the name - it wasn’t the first time someone named Henry had fallen out of a closet in his life, but he brushed it off as coincidence and tried to focus. “And this is JJ, my...my sister.”

Meanwhile Dean and Cas were deep in a heated whispered argument - Sam could only catch snippets of their conversation, and what he heard surprised him.

“...can’t, I don’t know what’s going on but there was a massive surge of energy around the bunker. I’m surprised the warding hasn’t triggered a lockdown.”

“You think they caused it?”

Cas glanced back at the two on the floor as Sam inspected JJ. She seemed fine except for being unconscious. The place where the blood seemed to have originated from was nothing more than smooth skin now, as if miraculously healed. As if healed by an angel.

He supposed that he could ask Cas to take a look at her. 

“I think the surge was caused by whatever brought them here,” Cas responded tersely, his eyes still watching Henry with a piercing gaze - that Henry met stare for stare, pale and shaking from either shock or blood loss, Sam wasn’t certain.

“Cas,” Sam interrupted, “I can’t see anything wrong with her and she won’t wake up. Can you take a look?” He stood up, wincing only slightly as his knees unfolded stiffly. Cas nodded, kneeling down. He reached towards JJ but paused as Henry stiffened.

“I’m…” Cas paused, unsure. “I’m a friend,” he settled on finally, and Sam was certain he was avoiding the ‘I’m an angel of the Lord’ explanation. “I can help.”

Henry’s eyes followed him as Cas placed his hand against JJ’s forehead as if he were taking her temperature. Sam caught a glimpse of a glow under Cas’ hand, but he pulled away after a short moment with a furrowed brow. “I don’t…” He trailed off. “I need Gabriel.” And without another word he stood, causing Sam to jump, stumbling away as Cas swished out of the kitchen.

“No, don’t--!” Henry’s cry was cut off as Cas left the kitchen, and once the Seraph was out of sight Henry crumpled in on himself, leaning heavily against the cabinet, still clinging to his sister’s hand.

Henry sighed, his eyes closing. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he mumbled softly. “We were just hunting a wendigo, this wasn’t supposed to happen…”

Jack, who had watched the entire circus with curious eyes, stepped forward. “A wendigo? You’re hunters?”

Henry cracked an eye open and he looked Jack up and down carefully. “It’s sort of a family thing. But my sister and me, we... There were these… Our escape plan backfired and somehow that landed us here.”

It was vague but it was enough for Sam to recognize that whoever they were, the kids on the floor of the kitchen - surrounded by the domesticity of the Men of Letters bunker, stainless steel and tile - were the furthest thing from a threat.

Dean didn’t seem too convinced, he watched Henry with narrow eyes and he kept glancing at JJ with confusion. Sam thought he could understand Dean’s confusion - there was something uncomfortably familiar about them, but he couldn’t remember ever coming across a Henry and JJ during their hunts. That didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

Sam had a sudden lurching panic that these kids were somehow the product of his and Dean’s habitual one night stands, but he brushed it off quickly - they were one night stands. And the kids were siblings, despite their wildly different appearances. and if Sam had to guess, there were at least two years between them. Aside from Lisa and… 

Well, Dean and Sam hadn’t really gone steady with anyone long enough to have  _ two  _ kids.

There was a sharp knock and everyone turned to see Gabriel, messy and sleep pressed, leaning against the doorframe that led into the kitchen. Sam’s stomach turned at the sight and he was too afraid to evaluate the source of his discomfort. He watched as Gabriel, eyes serious and mouth stiff, sauntered to the congregation at the pantry. He flashed a smirk to Dean and avoided Sam’s lingering gaze before his eyes landed on JJ, pale and still on the floor.

“Well this is new,” Gabriel broke the silence, watching Henry who stared at him distrustfully. Gabriel sounded awed as he looked at the pair, and something in his gaze told Sam that he was seeing through them rather than just seeing what was on the surface.

He wasn’t prepared for the words that tumbled from Gabriel’s mouth, the shock lancing through his chest like lightning.

“They’re Nephilim.”

  
  
  


“They’re Nephilim!” A shrill woman’s voice cried triumphantly and JJ shook her head. There was a fog over her thoughts and her hands were bound, and there was a heavy pressure over her legs keeping them still. And she was gagged.

She was lying down and she could feel cold stone under her back. An altar? There was the smell of smoke and she struggled to place the source, something herby and fresh like the green sapling Jack had once added to the bonfire when they were camping.

It clogged her nostrils and made her stomach roll when she caught a whiff of blood in the fire. She could hear chanting and she blinked, trying to wake herself enough to find her bearings to call to Jack - or worse, her  _ father _ \- for a rescue.

First hunting trip without the dads and they’d managed to get snatched by a group of psychos. Just their luck.

JJ turned her head and caught sight of an ancient stone altar to her left, with Henry’s prone figure draped across it. Her panic dialed up to ten, clearing the fog from her brain as she began to struggle against her bindings. She called out to Jack in prayer, watching the women bustling around the sacrificial altars furiously.

There were seven in total, each clearly vessels for angels that JJ could practically feel - their grace uncontained as it rolled off them in varying waves like identity signatures, much the same way radio frequencies differed from each other.

The leader, obvious only by her ridiculously gaudy ceremonial outfit made of heavily brocaded blood red robes, strode towards JJ with purpose and an outstretched angel blade. It didn’t deter JJ from her attempts to undo the cords around her wrists or get the gag out of her mouth, but she did follow the blade with a keen eye.

“Be still, Tainted Creature,” the woman’s words were sharp like shattered glass. JJ felt the derogatory term like a crack of the whip against her skin. She paused, watching the leader finish her approach. “I am the High Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Nether. We are the angels second only to the Archangels, forgotten by men for our betrayal against God.”

JJ rolled her eyes at the start of what was clearly an attempt at villain monologuing.

“We were once the Handmaidens,” the leader continued. JJ watched her wrinkled hand move the angel blade towards Henry and she struggled harder. “We were his chosen, and he left us - and so we found a New God.”

That didn’t sound good  _ at all _ . JJ clenched her eyes shut and prayed harder, pushing her focus to the back of her mind as she tried to call on the instinctual power she knew lay dormant under her skin. She’d seen Jack use it plenty of times, all she had to do was  _ find it _ .

“The Old One, God of the Nether, found us and brought us glory and power,” the Priestess was winding up now as she approached Henry instead of JJ. Henry groaned slightly but didn’t seem to wake as the angel blade inched closer to his neck. JJ strained against her bonds, desperately trying to wriggle free or break them in attempts to stop the Priestess from getting any closer to Henry with the angel blade.

“We offer sacrifices to Him again - He will restore us to the highest power, so that we may repopulate Heaven and bring back the rule of the angels.”

JJ struggled violently against her bindings, angry grunting escaping around the edges of the gag around her mouth. She watched almost in slow motion as the knife came down against Henry’s throat and the woman moved it across the tender skin with a sickeningly slow pull.

From behind her gag JJ  _ screamed _ , wrenching against the ties with all her might - and everything exploded.

Her scream sent a shockwave through the clearing, knocking the six lower level angels to the ground in a wave of golden light. The stone altar beneath her cracked like thunder, and her bindings burned and released her. The angel blade was thrown from the Priestess’ hand, sending a spray of blood from Henry’s neck onto the woman’s already blood red robes. She whirled towards JJ who was on fire, power coursing through her veins like rushing lava from a volcano.

“Leave him  _ alone!”  _ JJ threw out her hand and the Priestess went flying until she was pinned against the trunk of a massive tree. When the woman was out of her way she rushed to Henry, reaching towards his throat that was leaking blood and grace. She placed her hand over it and desperately willed it to close - but nothing happened.

_ “Jack!” _ she screamed into the darkness, her voice hoarse and broken as tears threatened to spill from her eyes.  _ “Please help us!” _

There was clap of thunder and Jack was there, golden eyes lit like halos of fire and he rushed towards JJ, extending a hand. Golden light burst from Jack and within seconds the wound in Henry’s neck healed under her hand. 

“JJ, take Henry and go!” Jack roared, rounding on the seven angels who had recovered and were advancing with blades out.

“I can’t leave you!” JJ cried, and she knew that if Henry were awake he would have called her a crybaby, a girly-girl, and a wimp. But she couldn’t help it, she was breaking, the power that had consumed her had cooled and she was helpless again.

“You have to!” He waved his hand again and Henry came to, staring up at JJ who was cradling him to her chest. He scrambled to his feet quickly and took in his surroundings - the broken altar, the blood, Jack desperately fending off the last three conscious angels and the Priestess, and the circle of fire that surrounded them.

“Take JJ and run!” Jack ordered, as JJ felt the cold of a knife collide with her temple. She felt Henry catch her as she crumpled and the last thing she saw was Jack’s face alight with fury as he shoved both of his hands towards them with percussive power, shouting:  _ “Go!” _

  
  
  


“...don’t know, but they’re definitely Nephilim.” For the second time in a single night JJ felt herself wake to unfamiliar and frightening surroundings. But this time she wasn’t bound, and though the flat surface beneath her back was as cold and hard as the stone altar, she was fairly certain it was concrete. Her grace buzzed with the feeling of home, but something was off.

“We should just ask them,” another more familiar and comforting voice responded. JJ felt her heart warm and she struggled against the band of unconsciousness to move towards the voice. The voice that sounded like home.

There was a derisive snort. “Yeah, like they’d actually answer us truthfully? I’d say we’d be better off taking our bets by playing dumb and letting them come to us. They’re probably going to need our help getting home if the power surge that brought them here is any indication.”

That voice sent cold chills running through JJ and she paused. This wasn’t right. Something was very, very wrong. She blinked, her eyes feeling like someone had poured buckets of sand under her eyelids, and she winced at the startling light.

“Woah, hey, easy,” the warm and comforting voice said quickly as she stirred. A hand squeezed hers. “JJ? Are you awake?”

She mumbled a response, a half-hearted reply that sounded like a whine to her own ears.

“JJ,” Henry’s voice was close to her ears and it was soft. “JJ I need you, something went very wrong.”

“He’ry?” Her lips were regaining feeling.

“Come on Henry, lets sit her up.” She heard Henry’s positive reply before a massive hand moved behind her back and she was tilted into a sitting position, her head spinning. It was easier to open her eyes without the lights directly above them however, and so she did.

And she immediately shut them.

_ Sam Winchester _ blinked at her with wide and trusting eyes, but he was all wrong. This was all wrong. The Bunker felt like it was off-kilter, like her whole world had been tilted sideways. There was no massive whiteboard calendar pinned with handwritten notes and lists, no certificates of achievements lining the walls, no children’s drawings. It was bereft of every sign of life she knew, leaving nothing but the cold industrial bones.

Henry was right. Steeling herself for another look, she cracked her eyes open again and was greeted with Sam’s worried expression, beyond Sam was Dean, his mouth twisted down into Dean’s dimples of discontent (a phrase coined by Henry), and….

Castiel was kneeling with Sam, and at the very back of the group - looking cocky as ever with arms crossed and a skeptical look on his face - was  _ Gabriel _ . JJ’s vision tunnelled. Amidst the surrounding chaos and confusion, there he was, a face she’d known since birth - unchanged and unaffected. He was still the same, and he would always be the same - an Archangel of the Lord.

_ Her father. _

But it was  _ all wrong _ .

Jack hadn’t just shoved them back to the bunker - he’d shoved them  _ back in time. _  
  
  
  


The kids didn’t clean up too bad, Dean had to admit, but he still didn't like it. Sam had gone all bleeding heart on the kids, trusting them without even knowing them, and Cas trusted Gabriel who said they were harmless despite being tiny packaged atomic bombs. Dean didn’t like it. Hell, Dean barely trusted Jack, and that was saying something.

The assembled group were sitting at the table in the library, the kids now clean and in clothes that weren’t drenched in blood, and they watched the four men with guarded and wary eyes.

“We’re sure that Rowena took the hunters out clothing shopping and she’ll be gone for a few hours?” Sam asked, subtly stressing how bad it would be for the Apocalypse world hunters to run across the new, untested Nephilim. The other world hunters could barely stand Jack, Cas, and Gabe, and with their PTSD their instincts to shoot first and ask questions later were constantly dialed up to 11.

“Yes, she’s gone for the foreseeable future,” Cas said, crossing his arms. Dean swallowed heavily at the way his arms stretched the trenchcoat. He never understood why Cas refused to take it off inside but he let the angel have his quirks - it wasn’t a half bad view either way.

Sam coughed, breaking the awkward silence before speaking. “So tell us what happened to you, or as much of it as you can. Maybe we can help. We have an entire library of resources.” His voice was quiet, like he was dealing with a spooked horse. He’d always been good with kids and animals, unlike Dean. Dean, who sounded more and more like his own father when dealing with Jack even though he didn’t want to.

He also couldn’t help but notice the way that the douchebag Archangel watched Sam, with a hint of awe and reverence. It crawled under his skin and he brushed it off to evaluate later.

The kids, meanwhile, were skeptical, shooting glances between each other as if having a silent conversation. Although, he realized, they  _ were _ Nephilim. Maybe they really could talk on some version of Angel Radio. Or maybe, Dean thought amused as he caught the girl pulling a face, they were just using the universal language of sibling expressions.

“Well, we can’t tell you a lot because…” the boy trailed off. He looked conflicted, nervous, and downright uncomfortable.

Dean could relate.

“Because you’re from the future,” Gabriel finished, one eyebrow cocked. It wasn’t phrased as a question and Dean’s eyes bugged out as he looked at the kids identical guilty nods.

“Woah, hold up! Future? They’re from the  _ future _ ?! When did our lives turn into the Back to the Future trilogy? First dad’s old man from 1950 and now some pup kids from…” He squinted as if trying to asses the year the pair were from by their clothing but they had arrived in nondescript plaid and denim, and now dressed in clothing snapped up by Gabriel, they looked even more plain and ordinary.

“2042,” the girl added in a grating sing-song voice.

“2042?  _ That’s not a real year!” _ Dean protested, throwing his hands up. There was no way. There was absolutely no way that the kids he was looking at were from nearly a quarter of a century in the future.

“Dean,” Cas said, watching him with a sour expression, “2042 is in fact a real year.”

Dean glared at his angel and jabbed a finger in his direction. “Not when you thought the world was going to end in 2014 it isn’t!” He rounded back on the teenagers (he could tell they were teenagers now, since the blood and gore had been cleared away. They looked so  _ goddamn young _ it almost hurt Dean just looking at them.)

“Alright fine let’s say I buy you’re from the future, what the hell kind of accident could wind you both back in the past -  _ in our bunker!” _ And that was the million dollar question. The pair looked sheepish and they commenced another round of sibling-facial-expression-arguing before the girl sighed and sprawled her arms out on the table before laying her head down.

“Whatever,” she huffed. “Tell them about the Sisterhood - I don’t care anymore.”

The boy - Henry, Dean remembered, and wasn’t that just a kick in the pants for irony - sighed. “I can’t tell you a lot,” he said with the air of grudging admittance. “I don’t want to screw up the timelines. I’ve heard plenty of stories growing up about what trying to change the timelines can do.” He shuddered. “But there’s this...Sisterhood…”

“A cult,” his sister broke in, sitting up again with a blank expression on her face. “They’re an angel cult.”

“They call themselves the Sisterhood of the Nether… I guess they’re trying to bring back an Old One to...make more angels. And the Old One they follow, he…” Henry paled and looked sick and clutched his throat.

“They feed on Nephilim,” JJ finished, with a sour look on her face. “And surprise, surprise, there are three fairly powerful Nephilim in the future and they wanted us to come for dinner. And not in the fun way either.”

Gabriel looked thunderous and Dean nonchalantly moved away from the pissed off Archangel. Gabriel might not have been at full power but Dean wasn’t going to risk it - he’d seen what an Archangel could do when they were really mad. And though he didn’t understand most of what had been said, he understood the basics and it wasn’t hard to figure out what had enraged the pint sized powerhouse.

“So lemme guess, the third Nephilim, most likely the one who sent you back here (which would explain the power surges) - that was Jack?” Gabriel asked, glancing over to Jack who was hovering at the edge of the stairs, unsure. Dean jumped, he hadn’t even noticed the kid come in. The last he’d heard, Sam had set Jack up with a Star Wars marathon on the laptop in his room.

Sam’s brow furrowed and he looked at the two across the table with a serious expression. He was clearly trying to unpuzzle the unfamiliar Nephilim, but Dean didn’t think there was much to unpuzzle. Some angels got busy in the future, had some kids, and now the kids were in danger of being some Lovecraftian nightmare’s lunch.

“So I’m probably the only one who can send you back?” Jack asked, moving to sit at the table. Henry smiled back at him, a soft and familiar smile - a  _ familial _ smile.

“Probably,” Henry answered. “But that’s okay. We can work on trying to stop the Sisterhood now - it’s probably better this way.”

Dean was about ready to call an end to their little meeting, happy to have found a purpose, when Sam abruptly derailed the conversation. “Jack sent you back here...I’m guessing by accident. But that means he was probably trying to send you to the bunker to begin with. Do we know you in the future?”

JJ paled and stared at Sam with wide eyes, but before Henry could stammer out an answer Gabriel broke in with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it Samsquatch, think of it like a book with a really intriguing jacket summary. Don’t peek at the end or you’ll ruin the surprise.” 

Sam glowered back at the Archangel and shoved away from the table. “Well, I guess it’s time to start researching. You two can make yourselves at home. When the other hunters get back we’ll just tell them…” He trailed off, looking at the kids with a critical eye. Dean was shocked at how determined Sam seemed to be to get to the bottom of their story.

Gabriel tossed in the solution. “We’ll tell them you’re family friends from out of town. They wouldn’t know better anyway. And as long as you don’t go flashing powers around, no one will be the wiser.”

Henry scowled. “We can’t use our powers,” he snapped, then quickly slapped a hand over his mouth with wide eyes. JJ, who had just stood from her chair, glared down at her brother.

“Great, go and spill the biggest secret there, why don’t you?” She sneered. “Don’t be such a bitch about it.”

Henry pouted, crossing his arms and slouching, glaring up at the girl from his seat. “Shut up, jerk, go research in the dungeon or something - far away from me.”

Dean turned towards the kitchen again. He needed more coffee. “Family friends, right. That won’t be hard to believe at all.”

And if Henry’s uncanny similarities to Cas seemed to nag at the back of his brain, Dean didn’t pay them any mind.

  
  
  


Castiel liked to consider himself an observant angel, but he knew that despite his rapid change since meeting Dean Winchester, he was still oblivious more often than not. After Dean retreated to the kitchen, grumbling about coffee, Sam offered to show JJ to their more dangerous artifacts and files and the girl happily followed, chatting amiably about some of her favorite items she knew resided in the Men of Letters bunker. Gabriel, after a moment's hesitation, turned to cautiously follow.

Leaving Castiel and Jack alone with the slouching and morose looking Henry.

Jack moved to take JJ’s vacated seat and Castiel went to the shelf to pull down the few books on a ngels he knew were in this section of the library. He handed one to Jack who beamed up at him with a quiet, “Thanks dad,” that warmed the very core of his being. He handed another to Henry who fumbled his thanks awkwardly. Castiel smiled, taking the seat opposite him.

After several long minutes of silence, the only sound the quiet hiss of pages turning, Jack turned to Henry. “So you can’t use your powers?”

Even Castiel’s questionable people skills knew that was a question in poor taste. He looked at Jack and sighed. “Jack, you shouldn’t just ask someone about their ability to use their powers or not. It’s impolite.”

Jack looked surprised. “Oh,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry.” He turned back to Henry who was watching him with curiosity. “It’s just that I haven’t ever met anyone like me before. I’ve met humans and I’ve met angels but I’ve never met any other Nephilim.”

Castiel wasn’t certain what about Jack’s statement had struck Henry, but his face fell abruptly. He looked sad - no, even worse, he looked  _ crushed.  _ He also looked like a man who had just experienced a revelation as he looked at Jack, sweet Jack who wasn’t even a year old who looked at the world with such happiness and wonder.

“There aren’t any other Nephilim.” Henry repeated, voice choked with emotion.

“No,” Jack continued, oblivious to the sadness sweeping through Henry. Castiel watched with fascination as Jack ploughed on with his sentence -- “But I’m sure that when there are I’ll be extremely excited.” -- as Henry threw his arms around Jack’s shoulders and pulled the gangly Nephilim into a crushing hug.

Jack glanced at Castiel helpless, and Castiel smiled.

After several long seconds, Henry jerked back. “There aren’t any other Nephilim!” He exclaimed, grabbing the nearest book and flipping manically through the pages. “That explains so much about the Sisterhood! I was passed out for most of it, but I remember - I remember hearing them saying something about sacrificing to the Old One, to the Nether, after Chuck left the first time.”

The light of understanding reached Castiel and he raised his eyebrows as his jaw went slack. “We should be looking for the original destruction of the Nephilim,” he clarified for a moderately perplexed Jack. “Originally we were told that the Nephilim were ordered to be destroyed by Michael, but Gabriel has explained to me that it was an excuse invented by Naomi. The two of them also fabricated the laws against the creation of Nephilim and claimed they were from God.”

Henry nodded enthusiastically, skimming through the book in front of him. “What if the order against Nephilim was installed after the Nephilim had already been sacrificed to the Old One? As a way to prevent further Nephilim from being created and used as ammunition by the Sisterhood?”

Something about Henry’s self-assured smile brightened Castiel’s grace. It reminded him of Dean, in the few moments that he had ever really seen Dean truly happy. And his eyes, the green was bright with a mix of grace and human soul, but they were so similar to Dean that Castiel couldn’t help but wonder.

Jack put a pause on the research however when he tilted his head and glanced at Castiel. “But if the Sisterhood only resurfaced when there were three powerful Nephilim...how do we know that they won’t come back now that Henry and JJ are here? Won’t this disrupt the timeline?”

Henry glanced wide eyed at Castiel who felt the shock thump into his chest like a fist. Henry looked ready to throw himself onto the table and give up, as he took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

“Son of a bitch.”  
  
  
  


Gabriel  _ knew. _

His head was spinning like a dreidel on Hanukkah and his grace was aching, stretching towards JJ. He reeled in the touchy-feely and took a deep breath. He could feel the ice from JJ’s jaded cold shoulder from the minute she’d laid eyes on him, and he wasn’t about to push boundaries without knowing the full story.

But it didn’t stop him from knowing.

It didn’t stop him from wondering who her human parent was (while still trying to deny her obvious physical similarities to the giant of a man she was currently chatting excitedly with as they looked through nerdy artifacts leftover from the stuffy librarians that called themselves Men of Letters).

It was one of the Dad-given perks of being an Archangel.

Gabriel would always know.

Even with her grace tamped down under self-doubt and anger issues, and her soul drowning in sorrow so great Gabriel couldn’t begin to comprehend where it had come from, he would know that grace anywhere - because it was  _ his _ .

JJ was  _ his _ .

And under the layers of obvious emotional dysfunction, she was so bright it made Gabriel want to cry. He had gone for so long with nothing to believe in, and here he was - looking at the one thing in the entire world that could make him believe in good things again. 

This had to be a colossal cosmic joke - Dad was having him on. There was no way Gabriel was remotely worthy enough to have a daughter like JJ.

And she was only seventeen, and in danger, and Gabriel was ready to rip the heads of every last member of the Sisterhood of the Nether. And he’d only known her for an hour, tops. But watching her smile with Sam, sitting on the cold concrete floor with a box between them, reading over Men of Letter case files, Gabriel wanted nothing more in that moment than to be part of that picture, and he wanted to protect it with everything he had.

“You know I could just snap the boxes up to the library so you wouldn’t have to sit on the floor, right?” Gabriel suddenly blurted, watching Sam adjust his seat on the concrete for the seventh time in the last fifteen minutes.

“Huh?” Sam looked up, as if he’d forgotten Gabriel was in the room….which he probably had. Gabriel had to admit he was not on the best footing with Sam Winchester. But he still couldn’t help but hear the echo of Sam’s tear-strangled words as Gabriel had hid in the back of his own mind, more instinct than intelligence -  _ “Gabriel,  _ I _ need you.”  _

Sam shook his head. “Oh, you know what, let me just… Hang on.” He stood, unfolding his ridiculously long limbs (seriously they were far longer than necessary) and stretching his back. “There are some chairs down the hall I’ll just bring them back, it would be easier than moving all the files.” He walked past Gabriel with a quick pat on Gabriel’s shoulder and then he was gone.

Awkward.

JJ glared at him from the floor and Gabriel shifted awkwardly against the shelf where he was leaning.

“You know, don’t you,” she wasn’t asking and the accusation was piercing. Gabriel shifted, avoiding her eyes.

“Kid, how could I not know? I mean, look at you.”

JJ looked down, as if offended. “You knowing didn’t do much to keep you around in the future, so I really don’t see why you knowing would change anything now.”

Gabriel furrowed his brow. He wasn’t around in the future? That...didn’t seem right. He wanted nothing more than to be there for JJ in this exact moment, he was certain that it would only be stronger after she was born. And sure, Gabriel was a known runner, but from this? From something he’d wanted for eons?

Before he could respond, a voice sounded from the door.

“Sam? Are you in here? Dean said you were researching, but you weren’t…” The voice trailed off as Mary Winchester rounded the corner and came face to face with the staring match between Gabriel and JJ.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt…” She glanced at JJ with confusion. “I don’t know you, you’re not one of the hunters we brought over.”

JJ looked at Mary with awe, and Gabriel knew hero worship when he saw it. It also confirmed his suspicions that her human parent was the gangly and lovable Winchester - and wasn’t that just a kicker. Gabriel took a deep breath.

“Mary!” He layered on the jovial charm, turning to the Winchester matron. “You’ve missed all the fun. This is JJ, a Nephilim from the future who fell out of a cupboard in the kitchen. Her…” He paused a a shocking realization doused his insides. “Brother,” he choked out, “Her brother is in the library with Castiel. Or he was.”

Gabriel didn’t know why he hadn’t realized when Henry had first said they were siblings. Gabriel instinctively knew that JJ was his, but Henry? Henry was all Castiel. It should have been obvious in the dark hair and moodiness, but Gabriel had been a little preoccupied.

Like he was at that exact moment, missing JJ introducing herself to Mary who was doing remarkably well with the idea of time traveling Nephilim from the future. Gabriel supposed it was a side effect of being practically a time traveler herself, albeit a resurrected one.

“Our family are hunters,” JJ was explaining with a bright smile. “They have been for a long time. I guess it was only natural for us to be part supernatural in the end.”

Mary looked skeptical but she put on a polite smile. “Well, that’s certainly a story. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help your stay be more comfortable, I know how it feels to be out of your time."

JJ  _ beamed _ . Oh yeah, she was definitely Sam’s kid.

And didn’t that just send pangs of longing stabbing through his chest. He heard Sam appear in the door behind him and the familial love ramped up to an unbearable level and without another word Gabriel disappeared in the soft sound of wings.

 

 

 

Gabriel reappeared in the kitchen with the soft whoosh of feathers and the satisfying yell of surprise from Dean, who sloshed his coffee down his front with a string of satisfying expletives.

“Damn it, Gabe!”

“Sorry Dean-o, thought you’d be off helping Castiel and the squirt find out how to get the new squirts out of your hair.” Gabriel wasn’t really sorry but he’d learned quick that it helped to keep Dean from stabbing and/or shooting him for fun.

Dean snorted and dumped the rest of his coffee in the sink, setting the mug down with an echoing thunk. Gabriel watched him grab a rag to dab at the massive stain down the front of his shirt before giving up and tossing the towel onto the counter in frustration.

“Yeah, no thanks,” he growled. “I don’t trust them, and I can’t figure out why you of all people trust them.”

Gabriel shrugged. “Archangel instinct?”

“Yeah, try again.”

“I can’t explain it to you, Dean-o, it’s something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself. But they’re harmless - you heard Henry, they can’t even use their powers. If anything the most trouble you’ll have to worry about is them getting into a family feud.”

“Right, but you buy this whole Sisterhood of the Ether or whatever?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes and snapped up a sucker that he popped into his mouth with a satisfied smile. “Sisterhood of the Nether, and yes I do. I actually remember the crazy old birds from back before I skipped out of heaven.”

Dean arched an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “Don’t you think you should tell Sam and Cas?”

“I said I remember them, not that I know how to stop them.”

“So what do they want?”

Gabriel deliberated, rolling the sucker between his fingers. He remembered the time after Dad had left, when there was an empty space in Heaven that had left the upper level of angels reeling. It was shortly after Lucifer had been put into the Cage - but the fighting hadn’t stopped. Gabriel had been more interested in setting up his escape from home than listening to the biddies bicker about what to do without God around.

“They wanted direction, they’re like all angels. But this group - they’re the Handmaidens. They’re Dad’s first daughters, like the Archangels are his first sons. And don’t let anyone tell you women aren’t conniving and manipulative - they wanted power and they wanted it now,” Gabriel settled on, glancing at Dean who pulled a face that read ‘moderately impressed’. “So they opened a rift using a Nephilim sacrifice and offered up the rest of the Nephilim as tribute to The Old One.”

Dean nodded, processing. “Right, so The Old One, he’s from another world like Apocalypse World and The Bad Place?”

“The Bad Place?”

“The….it was the name of the world we got locked into when Kaia… Nevermind. Anyway, just other places. Past rifts.”

Gabriel knew there was a story there but he resolved to bother Sam about it later. “Yeah, exactly. And The Old One, he’s a world eater. Almost as old as Dad and good-old Aunty Amara, but not quite. He was born from the void itself, when Dad started pulling all the strings together to make all of...this.” He waved his hand around in the air trying to encompass not only the world they were in presently, but Heaven, Hell, and even Apocalypse World.

Dean sighed and looked longingly at the fridge as if he wanted to grab a beer. “Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any weirder,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Right, so Nephilim all die because some ancient bitter crones sacrificed them to The Old One, but he went away when there were no more Nephilim and Michael and the God Squad outlawed future Nephilim to prevent future rifts?”

Gabriel pulled the sucker from his mouth with a satisfying pop. “Got it in one.”

Dean pushed away from the counter where he’d been leaning, uncrossing his arms and brushing himself off. It was a subconscious sign that Gabriel had picked up on during his time with the boys that Dean was ready to make a move, even if he didn’t quite know what move he was going to make just yet.

“Right, well let’s go talk to Cas and Sam….and see what we’re going to do about our sudden overabundance of half-angel kids in the bunker. Then we can get them out of our hair permanently, and go back to our normal levels of weird.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes affectionately.  _ Oh, _ he thought to himself,  _ if only Dean knew how wrong he was. _  
  
  


 

Castiel was...different.

Henry had never seen his dad so awkward before, so...uncomfortable. It might have been his own presence in the past that was a catalyst to Castiel’s discomfort, but Castiel also seemed generally unsure of his place in the bunker. Henry remembered his dad telling him about the time when he was human, and Dean had asked him to leave the bunker. Henry had been heartbroken, clinging to his father with tears in his eyes asking why he’d sent dad away.

“Why?” He sniffed sadly, catching sight of the tears prickling at the corners of both his dads’ eyes. “Why did you send dad away?”

Dean had smiled, grabbing Henry under his arms as he used his momentum to swing him up and into his lap, wrapping his son in a firm embrace. “It was a difficult time back then, buddy,” he rocked back and forth gently. “Don’t get too focused on the details because your dad and me - we still ended up here, even after all of that.”

Castiel, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, smiled softly as Dean cradled their six year old son closer and continued the story Cas had been trying to tell, about Heaven and Hell and a Profound Bond in-between.

But back in the present, or should Henry say the past? Their current relationship seemed to be the ‘in-between’. Castiel deferred to Dean awkwardly, and Dean continued to dance around Castiel, as if afraid he might send the angel running back to Heaven - though everyone could tell that Heaven was the last place Castiel wanted to be.

Castiel was filling Dean and Gabriel in on their discovery, along with the things he’d read about the Handmaidens in the lore kept by the Men of Letters. Incorrect information was promptly shut down by Gabriel who only spoke up when correction was needed.

“So what, we just wait for the crazy old lady squad to roll up trying to sacrifice the three Nephilim to Cthulhu and then gank them? Isn’t there  _ any _ proactive version where we take the fight to them?” Dean was pissed, Henry could tell. He was tense, his voice was tight, and he was gripping the back of Castiel’s chair with white knuckles.

“We could ask Rowena if she could check the Black Grimoire for a locating spell, but otherwise we’re S.O.L on this one boys,” Gabriel said with a sigh.

Dean scoffed. “We’re not calling your girlfriend.”

“Whose girlfriend?” 

JJ’s voice floated up from the hallway as she flounced into the library excitedly with Sam on her heels - and Henry felt his stomach drop through the floor. Sam, who watched her go with a sentimental smile. Henry knew she hadn’t spilled the secret - so it was nice to see the open affection on her dad’s face, even though he didn’t know he was her father.

Unfortunately, before Gabriel could stop him, Dean turned to face JJ and sneer, “Oh, Gabriel’s decided to shack up with Rowena of all people - a witch - and he thinks she could help us find the creepy crone club.”

(Henry had to admit his father was nothing if not inventive with colorful descriptions.)

But Henry also knew that JJ’s relationship with her father was strained at best - nonexistent at worst - and he watched her expression shutter at Dean’s words. The atmosphere grew chilly as she moved to the table and threw herself into the chair next to Henry, avoiding Gabriel’s eyes with an intense concentration.

“Why don’t we just go out and lure them into the open?” JJ sounded confident and cool, but Henry knew she was posturing.

It wasn’t surprising when all four of the adults shut her down with a firm and heavy handed,  _ “No.” _

Henry reached out and touched her arm softly but it was too late. With a glare she snapped her eyes to Gabriel. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

Henry hissed as he saw Gabriel straighten up and frown harder at JJ. “JJ,  _ don’t.  _ You can’t. Not after last time.”

It was the wrong thing to say, of course, Henry didn’t know what had compelled him to say it - but as soon as it had left his mouth JJ stood abruptly, her chair careening away from the table.

“And you can’t tell me what to do either,” she snapped, her eyes flashing with a spark of grace.

Henry glared. “You almost died JJ,” he snapped, meeting her gaze for gaze, standing slowly. “Dad said you weren’t ready and you went out anyway. Don’t do that again, or we’ll  _ all _ be dead.”

“They were going to kill you Henry, what was I supposed to do?! Wait for help that wasn’t going to come? Just admit that your dads love you and mine —,” she choked over the words, her eyes flicking towards Gabriel for a hesitant moment before she shook her head.

“You’re going to get yourself killed because you want to get back at your dad?” Henry was enraged. He could feel the anger and frustration bubbling under his skin. It felt hot and uncomfortable.

“No! That’s not —,” she snapped her jaw shut.

Henry glared. “That’s  _ exactly  _ what it is, you’d rather die than talk to him! I’m not gonna let you JJ, so if you want to go on a suicide run you’ll have to go through me.”

What he didn’t expect was JJ drawing herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing gold, and the sound of wings signifying her immediate disappearance. Henry’s heart lurched -- this was just like her, to run off with little to no concern for her own safety. She was going to get herself killed, it would be exactly like the last time, except this time she would be alone and afraid and --

There was a long pause before he took a deep breath and chorused in time with Dean —

“Son of a bitch.”

 

 

 

Henry startled awake as a heavy fist landed on his door with a bang. He jumped from the bed, scrambling towards his clothes as he heard his dad’s voice calling from behind the heavy wood.

“Come on kid, look alive! We’ve got a case!”

Henry was barely eighteen and he knew it had been a fight between his dads as to when he was allowed to go on a hunt beyond a standard salt-and-burn or a minor exorcism. Jack had been carefully combing the news for any suspicious activity that would work as a trial run for Henry, jokingly hoping they’d catch a ghoul so that “Henry can have a Dodge City experience, but with only the good parts”.

Grabbing his hunting bag, that had been packed since his birthday nearly three months before, Henry dashed out of his room straight into a passing Sam who stumbled and caught Henry by his shoulders.

“Woah there Henry, where’s the fire?” He grinned down at his nephew indulgently. Sam’s smiles had been few and far between for the last two years, since Gabriel had left.

“Dad’s taking me on a case!” Henry beamed. He maneuvered around Sam in the hallway who shook his head with a laugh, his hair falling around his face but Henry was gone in seconds, dashing up the stairs past the kitchen where he waved to his dad who was sitting with Jack. Castiel waved gently and smiled, apparently the surrendering party in the never ending debate surrounding Henry and hunting.

His dad was waiting in the garage, leaning against the Impala, keys in hand. He arched an eyebrow at Henry’s rumpled look, his hair sticking out at odd angles - practically a mirror for his father’s dark feathery flyaway hair. Dean sighed and gestured Henry forward where he then proceeded to try and flatten Henry’s fluffy bed head into something more tame.

“Honestly, the two of you, what am I gonna do…” He said, giving it one last try before he gave up, relenting to the immovable power of Henry’s bed head. “Alright kid, hop in, we’re going on a demon case.”

Henry stumbled around the front of the car, yanking the passenger door open. He felt his tired feet slip against the polished concrete and he clung to the door to keep himself upright before bodily throwing himself onto the bench seat of the Impala.

“Demons? Where?”

“Hastings, it’s about an hour drive, so buckle up - we should be there in time for breakfast.”

Henry glanced at the clock in the dash and raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t even bothered to check his cell phone alarm after waking, and he was surprised to see the clock reading 6 AM. He grinned, stretched against the seat, and settled in for a drive with his dad and Led Zeppelin.

He should have known something was off when he got in the car. Henry was ashamed to admit that he was complacent, his mind elsewhere as they drove. It wasn’t until they were halfway to Hastings that he realized there was a prickle at the back of his neck, the hair on his head standing up like he was near electrical wire.

Or an angel.

With lightning speed he spun around on the seat, looking down to the floor of the backseat where JJ’s sheepish smile looked up at him.

“Hi,” she sing-songed, wiggling her fingers.

The car jerked at the sound of her voice, Dean swearing up a storm. He looked shifty, glancing at Henry before muttering, “Don’t tell your dad I said that.”

Henry glared back at the figure of his younger cousin sitting up in the backseat. “What the hell JJ?!” JJ climbed up from the floor before flicking her long sandy brown hair over her shoulder. She flashed Henry a mischievous grin before sliding over until she was behind the passenger side. She reached up with long fingers and flicked Henry’s forehead gently.

“I wanted to come with you!” She said with a smile.

“Jessica Joanne Winchester,” Dean growled, “You are in _ seriously _ big trouble.”

“Please Dean!” she pleaded, leaning towards the front seat. Henry sighed and turned back around, slumping into the seat. They were going to turn around, and he was going to miss his first big hunt, because JJ was a selfish brat with daddy issues. Henry knew he should be the bigger person but all he wanted to do was punch JJ in her smug freaking face.

“You’re not even  _ close  _ to ready, kid!” Dean snapped. “You’re  _ sixteen _ , you’re supposed to be working with Grandma and Uncle Bobby on research and the phones, not out risking your life when you’ve never even gone on a salt-and-burn!”

“I can learn!” JJ protested. “And besides, you were hunting when you were my age, and so was my dad! And in case you’ve forgotten my other dad is an _A_ _ rchangel _ , I think I’ll be fine!”

“Yeah, you  _ think _ \- but even Jack struggled to control his powers when he was your age, and he’d been learning since he was three months old!” Dean was on a roll and Henry slunk lower in his seat. “You need to count your blessings that you didn’t have the same kind of childhood as me, your dad, and Jack. We’re going back and you’re going to wait for your first job until  _ after _ you turn 18.”

“At least let me watch!” she pleaded before Dean could pull over the car. “I’ll accept any and all punishment that you and dad see fit when we get home, but if you turn around now you’ll probably miss the demon and then it’ll be farther away when it turns up again - I can stay out of the way! I promise! Please Uncle Dean?”

Henry saw Dean’s hands tighten on the steering wheel and he knew his dad was going to give in. Dean had a soft spot for Jessica, everyone knew it. Sometimes Henry wondered if his dad wouldn’t have been happier with a daughter like JJ, someone a bit more quick and fierce, where Henry was casual and calm. But he’d shoved all of his self-doubt into a closet that he swore he would look at once he’d had his first real hunt with his dad. Then he could take out the feelings and evaluate them more fully.

“Fine,” Dean snapped, accelerating the Impala back up to speed. “But if you put one toe out of line, I’m calling your father’s feathery ass down here to snap you back home. And don’t even  _ think  _ he won’t answer.”

Dean had already cranked the radio back up and was glowering out of the windshield like he could smash it into dust with just the force of his mind, so he missed the way JJ settled back into the seat, crossing her arms and staring dejectedly out the window.

And with only human hearing, he definitely missed the quietly muttered, “As if he really cares.”  
  


 

 

“I’m going after her,” Gabriel said immediately, jumping to his feet. He was stopped by a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to Sam’s furrowed brow, the giant Winchester shaking his head imperceptibly.

“What the hell just happened?” Dean demanded, rounding back on Henry who seemed to shrink under Dean’s anger. Castiel put out a hand towards Dean who seemed to calm somewhat, though he still looked ready to shoot first and ask questions later.

“What do you mean, she almost died?” Jack asked, jumping straight to the heart of the matter. 

Sam and Gabriel seemed to be having a silent argument, and Henry was having a hard time focusing, watching his cousin’s dads going back and forth with nothing but their eyebrows.

And they weren’t even  _ together _ yet.

“It’s a long story, and I can’t...tell you most of it, but --,” Henry started to say, but he was cut off by a strangled noise coming from Gabriel who threw his hands in the air.

“Fine! We’ll go together! Strap in Samsquatch, things are about to get bumpy.” Before Dean or Castiel could protest, Gabriel reached up with two fingers and tapped Sam’s forehead. They both disappeared in the soft flutter of wings and the crackle of ozone.

Dean sent a puzzling look at Castiel who shrugged. Castiel turned back to Henry who sucked in a deep breath. He could still feel the morning air brushing past his face the day that everything changed.

They’d had breakfast at a little mom-and-pop shop, Dean being extra polite to the waitress who looked like a high school kid that was trying to to scrape by. He made sure to tip her well with the cash he’d dug out of the Impala’s glovebox, before herding his son and niece back into the car to drive out to the abandoned shopping center.

Hastings wasn’t a big city by any stretch of the imagination, and there was an abandoned shopping strip on the edge of town. It had once housed a small local chain grocery store, a boutique, and a Peruvian restaurant, but the seven or so units had never been rented to capacity and it shut down shortly after it’s completion. Henry read the facts off of a police report he’d downloaded to his phone - it had closed three years before, but within the last three weeks had seen a rash of dead bodies showing up.

The police were stumped because all of the bodies were from outlying towns and seemed to have died of natural causes, but every person had been reported missing the week before their body appeared in the shopping center.

Tack on the handful of demonic omens and the signs all pointed to a demon joyriding through meatsuits before they burned out.

They broke into the unit that had been a grocery store around noon, after having canvassed the area thoroughly, looking for strange signs or behaviors in the people they passed. After nothing appeared out of the ordinary and neither Henry nor JJ saw any demons, squinting hard to see their true faces behind the human visage, they parked the Impala in back and started laying traps around the store.

“A summoning should do the trick, it’s probably just floating around having too much fun with the meatsuit. I’m guessing the demon doesn’t plan on taking off unless it draws any more attention to itself,” Dean explained, finishing up the spray painted devils trap on the cheap linoleum flooring.

Henry wondered what people would think when they came by the store in the future. Some teenagers broke in and tried messing around with Satanic rituals? Or just that graffitti was graffitti and someone was a little drunk.

It was only when Henry looked up that he realized JJ was awfully quiet. He cursed himself for being less observant. Dean was in the back of the store dropping some salt around the unprotected entrances, and JJ was gone.

And then Dean came flying through the swinging double doors from the freezer room, landing with an impressive thud before skidding across the floor and coming to a stop at the base of a pillar.

“Dad!” Henry cried, watching a trickle of blood drip down Dean’s forehead as he slumped over, unconscious. Henry could still hear his dad’s heartbeat, so he didn’t panic immediately. Instead Henry turned to the swinging doors that were still beating a staccato rhythm. A teenager, probably around the same age as Henry, came waltzing out, eyes black. He was dressed in practically all black, a baggy hooded sweatshirt and chains looping from his pants pockets.

_ “Dad!”  _ The demon mocked, pulling a face. “Oh boo-hoo, your daddy’s gonna be fine. But you? Maybe not so much. Little Nephilim wandered a bit too far away from the angels, and I know plenty of demons clamoring for the throne of Hell who would  _ love  _ to get their hands on you, kiddo.”

Henry paled, hands scrambling at his pockets for something, anything, that could keep the demon at a distance long enough for him to find JJ and get her and his dad out alive.

The demon cocked its head. “Looking for your little gal pal? Oh, she’s also on the Nephilim menu, of course, but she’s not nearly as developed as you, despite clearly being Archangel spawn. But you - oh I’m sure you’d go for a pretty penny.”

The demon raised it’s hand quickly, making a claw with its fingers, and Henry felt his throat closing. His hands raised against his will to struggle against the invisible force that slowly dragged him up until his toes were barely brushing for the floor, jerking desperately trying to find a foothold.

“Ha!” The demon laughed, tilting its head just so. “This being topside thing is the most fun I’ve had in years - it’s the real Darth Vader experience!”

The reference caught Henry off guard, and he paused his struggles, the edges of his vision growing dark. He was almost gone when he heard a clatter and a shout that echoed through the deserted building.

“Hey! Let go of my family, bitch!”

Henry crumpled to the floor as he saw a hand slap down on the demon’s forehead and light begin to pour from its eyes. JJ was staring down at the teenager housing the demon with a fierce light in her eyes, and an anger on her face that Henry had never seen. The demon screamed as it lit up from the inside, but slowly the screams died as the light faded - and the screams turned to dark bone chilling laughter.

“Oh, you must be Sam Winchester’s little brat! All bark and no bite, just like your daddy! No surprises there,” the demon spat. “So you can just give your dad a little  _ message,”  _ the demon jerked suddenly, and JJ cried out in pain, “...from me.” JJ looked down with wide, frightened eyes.

There, at the bottom of her ribcage, was the telltale glint of an angel blade sticking out from the end of the demon’s fist, shoved hilt-deep into JJ’s abdomen, her mouth gaping open in shock as she gasped for air.

“Tell Sam Winchester that Ava says hello.”

Then the demon ripped the blade from JJ’s stomach, blood spurting out grotesquely as the demon - Ava - grinned savagely and JJ dropped to the floor like a stone. Henry could hear screaming, and it echoed through the empty store like a high pitched whine - the reverberation shaking the glass.

_ It’s me _ , Henry realized distantly.  _ I’m screaming. _

Henry had never been able to use his True Voice before, though Castiel had often tried to help him find it. It ripped from him in that moment, shattering all the glass in the windows and displays inward, showering Dean, JJ, and Ava in a hail of crystalline light.

Ava snarled, hands clapped over her ears, as blood leaked down the side of her face. She stared at Henry as if she was going to advance but she didn’t have time. There was a flutter of wings as Henry’s scream died, and the demon screamed - light bursting from her eyes, nose, and mouth as she burned. As the body dropped to the floor, an empty husk, Henry’s eyes lit on Gabriel - the  _ Archangel _ Gabriel, a mask he hadn’t often seen his Uncle wear - staring down at what used to be Ava in disgust.

There was a whimper, high and keening, and Gabriel’s face shifted back into the loving and caring father that Henry knew. Gabriel dropped to his knees next to JJ who was crying, desperately clutching the wound in her stomach. She was shaking, and Henry felt himself begin to panic as Gabriel started to murmur platitudes - the Archangel clearly distressed.

“Hey baby girl,” his voice shook as he strained to sound calm, “hey.” He was practically whispering but Henry’s ears picked it up easily. “Hey it’s me, it’s daddy, I’m going to make it all better, okay? But I need you to let me see, baby, I need you to move your hands.”

JJ let out a strangled whimper, gurgling and high pitched. She was sobbing, Henry could see it, but she was fighting the blood that was bubbling to her lips. 

“That’s my girl, good girl, okay, let’s see what we have here --,” there was a muffled swear, and Henry saw Gabriel’s fists clench as JJ started crying in earnest, her wailing strangled and muffled by the blood and the struggle her lungs were going through to get oxygen.

Gabriel leaned back away from JJ who let out a high strangled sob, her one free and bloodied hand grasping at his sleeve, staining it a deep red. But Gabriel was looking up, his face a mask of fury and pain as ancient as time itself.

“Dad?!” He called towards the ceiling. “Dad, I haven’t asked you for a single thing - not once since the day you left! I didn’t even get the apology you gave Lucifer, but Dad you owe me this one thing - save my daughter, you bastard, and I’ll call everything else even!”

There were several tense seconds where nothing happened, and Henry thought that JJ was going to die. But then there was a clap of thunder and the room whited out.

Later Henry learned that the angel blade had been dipped in holy oil which prevented the wound from being healed in a conventional way, and despite everything Nephilim were made of it was enough to offer a slow and painful death because JJ hadn’t developed enough of her grace. But apparently Chuck had come through because JJ was fine, though she didn’t speak to anyone for nearly a week after the ordeal, and then only very briefly for another three months.

Henry had taken all his repressed resentment about JJ and let them go as he’d watched her die on the floor of an empty strip mall in Hastings Nebraska. Instead the feelings were replaced with a fierce protectiveness and a frustration that JJ seemed incapable of putting her own safety first.

That didn’t stop the fighting, however, and it almost seemed to make it worse. Bickering over botched hunts, movie nights, and maturity, they grew closer, even if they butted heads more often. 

Henry wouldn’t trade it for anything, though, and by the time his highly edited recap of events was finished, Dean and Castiel were watching him with slack jaws and vacant expressions.

There was a long pause as Jack watched the three closely before Dean shook his head and looked at Castiel, determined.

“We have to stop JJ.”

Castiel nodded firmly. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  
  
  


Gabriel flew them to an abandoned salvage yard that reminded Sam of Bobby’s old place in South Dakota. The cars were stacked to at least thirteen feet on either side and the entire place was a maze. The sun was getting low on the horizon, the day having gone surprisingly fast after the appearance of JJ and Henry in the kitchen.

Sometimes Sam forgot about the passage of time in the bunker. Living underground made it hard to remember that the sun rose and set every day, that six o’clock in the evening wasn’t as bright and sterile as the inside of the bunker could make him believe.

Sam really needed to get out more.

“She’s here,” Gabriel said quietly. “But it’s probably going to be an on-foot search.”

“Should we split up?” 

Gabriel seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking his head. “No, not this time Sammich. She’s spooked and unpredictable - and if the Sisterhood decide to pick this exact worst moment to rear their ugly heads, we need to be together.”

Sam nodded, the plan was sound at least. He desperately hoped the Sisterhood didn’t take this moment to show up. JJ put up good walls, an act of snark and attitude, but Sam saw right through it. He didn’t know what had sent her running from the bunker but he had a determination to help everyone - against Dean’s better judgement - and Sam wanted to help.

JJ had seemed perfectly happy and content when she was down in the library with him, but when she was around Henry or Gabriel it was like watching a kitten puff it’s fur in agitation. Sam wasn’t a therapist by any stretch but he’d seen Dean put up those walls his entire life. They never hid anything good.

He had to remind himself that she was seventeen and seventeen year olds acted out - it was normal. Sam would know, he’d been that seventeen year old too.

It was odd for Gabriel to show so much care and initiative, however, and he watched the Archangel from the corner of his eye as they continued to wander through the stacks of cars, scanning for the head of long dusty hair.

“I can feel you staring at me Sam,” Gabriel said softly after a few minutes of quiet observation. “If you have a question you can ask it, I’m not going to bite you.” Sam felt like there was an innuendo Gabriel chose to leave off the end of his sentence, almost as if he were trying to have a rational and serious conversation.

Sam wasn’t sure they could have a rational and serious conversation without blurting out his feelings all over the place.

“It’s just that you care, Gabriel, and I’ll be honest, until you threw yourself in front of Michael in the Apocalypse world, I was still wondering if you could care at all. About anything.”

Gabriel bristled slightly, but had the decency to look somewhat ashamed. “You’re not wrong. I didn’t care for a long time. But then I did. I think I even cared back in the Elysian Fields Motel. But it was easier to pretend I didn’t.”

Sam swallowed hard. There was a burning question in the back of his mind he didn’t want to ask but somehow he knew it was now or never.

“And at the Mystery Spot?”

Gabriel stopped in his tracks, looking up at Sam with wide eyes, hyper focused as if he was looking in at Sam’s soul instead of just seeing his body. Sam wanted to shrink from the view of the one being in the entire universe he still wanted approval from. It was insane, the desire for approval from the one man who had made his life a living hell. But after their experience in TV Land, when Gabriel confessed his identity, the tiny spark of belief that had been smothered by Ruby - and dickbags like Uriel and Zachariah - reignited.

“I was wrong.”

Sam’s heart stuttered in his chest.

“What?”

“You heard me Samsquatch, I was wrong. And not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could take it back, but that’s just one of the joys of Dad’s little world down here - you have to learn from your mistakes.”

When Sam made no move to reply - not from a lack of desire to say something but more from a speechlessness he didn’t know was possible - Gabriel continued with haste. He was clearly uncomfortable but he ploughed on, avoiding Sam’s wide eyed trusting gaze.

“And you don’t necessarily deserve forgiveness all the time, but sometimes I can’t help but hope that maybe one day I’ll earn yours. I know that with everything I’ve done - or not done, even - and everything you’ve been through I’m not even worthy to kiss the ground you walk on let alone ask you to forgive me.”

“Gabriel, I forgive you.”

Sam wasn’t quite sure when he had forgiven Gabriel, but between the adventure through television, watching Gabriel flare out in the rearview mirror of the Impala, and seeing Gabriel sitting in the bunker bloody and frightened - somewhere on that journey Sam had given up his anger.

But there it was, out in the open, and Sam wasn’t sure he could stand the look of awe plastered across Gabriel’s expression.

He didn’t have time to try and analyze the expression before a loud sniff drew their attention twenty yards ahead where a car was sitting half crushed, its front door open, and a familiar looking jean leg sticking out, the attached foot scuffing the gravel.

Gabriel snapped to attention, approaching the hiding spot slowly. When the pair reached the edge of the car, Gabriel spoke.

“Hey kiddo, you in there?” At the sound of his voice the leg jumped and there was a loud thud and a cry before JJ was curling in on herself and sliding out from the crumpled wreck.

“How’d you find me?” She asked, wiping at the tear tracks down her cheeks. She was looking at Gabriel, so Sam assumed she wasn’t really asking him.

“Can’t trick a Trickster,” he said softly, half a smirk playing at the edges of his lips. “Followed your grace signature. Wasn’t hard when I knew what to look for.”

JJ sighed and drew her knees up to her chest. “Right,” she mumbled. “Of course you could.”

“Hey JJ,” Sam tried, looking down at the girl who reminded him so much of himself at seventeen - angry at the world, at her life, at her inability to live up to the older brother she clearly idolized.

JJ looked up at him with wide and trusting eyes and Sam wondered exactly who he was to her in the future. She seemed to know him and Dean at least, and she knew Jack.

And she and Henry had both referred to their dad’s in the future, and hunting was clearly a family business. She had been absolutely smitten with Mary, like she was looking at her childhood hero.

Sam felt a funny feeling start in his chest, a glow that flooded him with a mixed rush of excitement and fear.

“Uh-oh, kiddo,” Gabriel’s voice sounded far away. “I think he’s figured it out. He always was too smart for his own good.”

Sam felt dizzy and his whole body felt light. “JJ, am I —,” he didn’t even get the entire question out before JJ had launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his chest in a massive, bone crushing hug. Yep, definitely a Nephilim.

She nodded into his chest, and he could feel tears begin soaking into the material.

He wrapped his arms tentatively around her, feeling her shake with repressed sobs. He glanced away from JJ towards Gabriel who was watching them with the softest expression - and it shot through Sam like lightning.

“Is she…” It seemed impossible. But it seemed the most obvious answer. “Mine?”

“Tell him your name, kiddo,” Gabriel prodded gently and JJ buried her face against the flannel on Sam’s chest as if she could hide there and escape reality. She was softly hiccuping quiet sobs that broke Sam’s heart.

“Jessica,” she mumbled. “Jessica Joanne Winchester.”

Sam’s heart was going to explode. He avoided the obvious question - who was her angelic parent - and settled on clinging a little harder to the beautiful girl that was a glimpse into his future - a future that was beginning to look a lot happier than he’d ever dared to hope for.

“Hi Jessica,” his voice felt strangled as he pressed a kiss into the crown of his daughter’s hair. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She hiccupped a laugh, squeezing him tighter, and Sam swallowed his groan. He saw Gabriel’s eyes sparkling with laughter. “Hey kiddo, I think you’re going to break your dad if you’re not careful. Might want to ease up on the bear hug.”

Jessica jumped back quickly, wiping her eyes as she looked up at Sam with trepidation. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s...it’s okay,” he reached out slowly to pull her back into a hug and she moved into his arms with no resistance. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I’m so breakable… I never thought I’d have a kid, let alone an amazing half-angel kid who could probably kick my ass.”

Jessica giggled, soft and high, and Sam suddenly saw the little girl under the anger and the pain; the kid he’d never been able to be. It made him realize that in the future he must have tried to give his daughter a childhood, and it made him glad. Even though she was still a hunter, she was still his little girl.

“Ah, how sweet,” Sam felt as if his insides had been doused with ice at the crackling voice that spoke from behind him. He whirled around, pushing Jessica behind him quickly. Gabriel materialized at his elbow, an angel blade in hand. The woman behind them was old - wrinkles across her face, exacerbated by her pinched expression. Her hair was steel grey, piled on top of her head and wound up tightly in some kind of red material that was echoed in her ceremonial robes.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to break up your touching little family reunion and take the Archangel spawn with me.”

Gabriel moved forward, brandishing the angel blade Sam knew wasn’t his own, with a fierce expression. “Sorry sister, you’ll have to go through me first.”

The woman’s face took on a patronizing expression as she stared down the Archangel. “Oh Gabriel, Gabriel,  _ Gabriel. _ How noble of you to put yourself in the line of fire.” She waved her hand and Gabriel went flying, slamming into a stack of cars with enough force to bend metal. Jessica screamed. “But I’m the High Priestess of the Old One, and it’s not you that I want. Not to mention that you’re still weak, not even a challenge for the lowliest Seraph right now. What makes you think you could stop  _ me _ ?”

Her eyes glowed, a bright white tinged with electric blue, and she reached out towards Jessica who was staring wide eyed and frozen, like a deer in headlights. Sam stepped between the woman and his daughter and braced for the familiar rush of unseen power that would send him flying, but it never came.

“No, don’t!” Jessica was suddenly in front of him. Had she...flown? Her hands were balled up at her sides as she stared down the Priestess, head held high, back stiff and proud. “Leave my family alone, and I’ll go with you.”

“Jessica, no --,” Sam cried but the woman waved her hand and his voice disappeared. He stared wide-eyed, struggling against a force holding him back as Jessica slowly walked towards the red robed angel.

He heard Gabriel groaning, coming to at the base of the pile of crumpled cars.

“Good girl,” the old crone smiled, her face a sinister warped mask of matronly affection. “Say goodbye to your daddies, you won’t be seeing them again.”

There was a horrible moment before the Priestess disappeared where Jessica turned, her eyes lighting on Sam and he could see her unshed tears. His heart twisted painfully as he heard the familiar sound of wings fluttering before they both were gone - leaving only Sam’s hoarse cry echoing through the junkyard.

_ “No!” _

  
  
  


Dean watched Henry with interest as they finished packing the best anti-angel weaponry they had - courtesy of the Apocalypse world hunters. Henry seemed familiar in a way Dean couldn’t quite place a finger on. Henry reminded him of Cas, sure, but Dean brushed that aside ascribing that to Henry’s angel half. 

He watched, intrigued, as the dark haired boy meticulously checked his guns and gear before packing it all into a makeshift tactical belt he’d whipped up from somewhere in the bunker.

_ John _ , his traitorous mind whispered.  _ He reminds you of John. _

He didn’t have time to dwell on his observation because the bunker wards began to wail, the locks clicking with heavy thuds and the lights dimming until nothing but pulsing red remained. 

Dean reached for his gun and whirled around, jerking in shock when he found himself face to face with an old lady in blood red robes.

“What the hell--?!” He jumped back, hand reaching for his spare angel blade.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she wagged a finger and the blade went spinning out of his hands.

“No!” Henry jumped forward, facing down the woman with a fierce glare. “Not you! Not again!” The woman tilted her head - reminiscent of the scores of angels Dean had met who were confused with humanity and their choices.

“Not again?” She intoned, giving Henry a brief once over. “Oh, yes, I see. The Archangel spawn did seem a little off, but I assumed it was just her strange parentage….” The woman seemed to be talking to herself but she tutted like she was someone’s old grandmother observing everything wrong with the next generation. “But you’re definitely from the future. I can see the timelines all tangled around you like a weaver’s knot. Which means the timeline is corrupted. Ah well,  _ c’est la vie, _ none of that matters now. You’ll both be coming with me.”

Her eyes flicked across the room to where Jack stood frozen at the head of the table. Cas moved in front of him quickly, shielding him from her unnatural gaze.

She lifted a finger with a flash of eyes filled with blue light --

“Not this time, you bitch!”

\-- and was promptly thrown across the room by an angry Gabriel who was sporting a trickle of dried blood down the side of his face. Sam came jogging up behind him, looking furious but unharmed.

JJ was nowhere in sight.

Cas furrowed his brow. “How did you get past the warding she set off?”

Gabriel and Sam split up, Gabriel going to the angel he had pinned to a wall and Sam towards Henry who was watching him with wide eyes filled with worry. “Long story,” Sam grumbled, slightly breathless. “But it turns out even low powered Archangels can burn away enough of the wards from outside to break into the Bunker.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows. “I’d say we should work on that but right now I think I’m grateful.”

“Where’s JJ?” Henry demanded, staring up at Sam with a fierceness. “Did you find her?”

Sam’s face was crestfallen and Dean immediately knew the answer. Apparently, so did Henry who took one look at Sam’s face and crumpled. He collapsed into a chair at the table facing away from the scene, before burying his face in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees.

“Where’s my daughter?” Gabriel snarled, getting right up in the crazy lady’s face. 

Dean gaped, glancing at Sam who cut off his question with a hurriedly muttered, “Later, Dean.”

The crazy angel laughed, the sound grating and harsh. It sounded like she was choking on something and Dean had to assume it was the force of Gabriel’s grace holding her against the wall. “I’m a Priestess, you’re just Heaven’s Has-Been. You can’t hurt me.”

The bunker’s alarms silenced and the lights returned to normal as Mary ran up from the lower levels, skidding to a halt in the atrium, watching Gabriel with wide eyes, glancing at her boys and Cas before turning back to the action at hand.

“I know you,” Cas ground out with disgust. “You’re Deborah, the Eldest Handmaiden. You were... a myth after the Fall of Lucifer.”

Deborah cackled, choking on the force holding her against the wall. “And you’re Castiel, the butcher of Heaven’s Forces, the Fallen, the Rebellious.” She grinned, blood staining her teeth from the force of Gabriel’s hold. “The Seraph tasked with beginning the Apocalypse only to fall for The Righteous Man and have  _ tainted offspring _ with him.”

Dean balked and did a double take. What?

It seemed to be an accusation that confused Cas as well because he glanced back at Dean then turned to Deborah. “I don’t have any Nephilim children.”

Deborah’s laugh turned manic and Gabriel’s grace flared, light flooding the room. But Deborah persisted, the laugh nearly overtaking every other sound. It was harsh, discordant, and it sent chills up Dean’s spine - the kind of feeling people used to say meant that someone was walking over your grave.

“But you will,” she sing-songed in a raspy tone. “And he’s going to be  _ all mine.” _

The realization seemed to hit Dean and Cas at the same time because their heads turned in tandem until they were staring at the hunched form of Henry, who had his back to Deborah, as he curled in on himself even more. Dean caught a glimpse of tears dripping down onto the floor off the point of his nose.

“...Henry?” Dean’s voice was soft, the rough edges breaking over emotions he didn’t know he could feel crowding their way up his throat and against his voice box. Henry stiffened and sat up slowly, turning around in the chair until his electric green eyes met Dean’s, and Henry was hit with a fresh wave of tears.

Henry’s voice was cracked and strained as he put on a wobbling smile.

“Hi, Dad.”

Deborah scoffed, drawing attention back to her as she sneered at the assembled company. “Touching, I must say. Not as good as Gabriel’s little brat, but a close second.” She struggled against Gabriel’s hold and a shockwave of power pushed Gabriel back into the table, causing him to release her and she dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. “But now I must take the Nephilim and return to the Sisterhood.”

She stretched out a hand and Henry froze, invisible power wrapping around him like a vice. Dean started towards him but Deborah waved her free hand and Dean’s feet glued themselves to the concrete floor.

“No!” He pulled against the magnetic power in desperation.

Henry writhed against the grip, eyes wide and sad as he watched Dean straining to reach him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and Dean screamed, straining.

Mary was rooted to the spot, pulling against the power that held her frozen to the floor. Castiel, at Gabriel’s side, looked stricken.

“Cas, help him, damn it!” Dean roared, his helplessness choking him. Just like he’d been helpless to save Dad, and Kevin, and Charlie -  _ and Cas _ . Cas, who jerked forward at his words but was blasted back, stuck like a fly to flypaper next to Gabriel.

Sam looked pained as he tried to reach Henry, straining forward, a vein bulging in his neck as he groaned and grit his teeth - but he was just as frozen as Dean.

The surprise came from Jack, who bellowed, a wave of golden light rolling from his shoulders, releasing Dean and Henry with a breath of fresh air.  _ “No!  _ I’m not letting you take my family away!” With a single hand he shoved and light filled the atrium, as Deborah screamed. There was a high pitched whine that set Dean’s ears ringing, and then there was silence.

When the light dimmed, Deborah was nowhere in sight, Mary was sitting on the floor looking shell-shocked, and Sam was helping Gabriel into a chair. Cas was at Dean’s shoulder in a flash, and for a second Dean wondered if Cas had his wings back. But then his focus shifted to Henry who was breathing heavily, crumpled in his chair.

“Thanks Jack,” Henry finally wheezed, glancing at Jack who was watching his recuperating family with concern. Jack nodded in response before turning to Mary who accepted his hand which hauled her to her feet with ease.

“Henry,” Cas’ voice was apprehensive, “are you alright?”

Henry looked up at Cas and smiled, and Dean was shocked by how right it felt to think of them as a family - himself, Cas, Henry, and Jack. His chest felt full for the first time since before he could remember. Dean had been walking around half alive for so long that he was surprised by how light he felt by knowing he had something to live for.

“I’m good, dad,” Henry said softly, watching Cas who seemed pleased by the endearment. He reached out to his son and pressed his palm to the side of Henry’s face briefly and Henry sighed, leaning into the touch for a few precious seconds. “Thanks.”

“We need to regroup fast,” Sam’s voice broke through the quiet moment with shattering urgency. “They have Jessica and they’re planning to move forward on the whole ‘Summon an ancient evil from another dimension’ plan.”

Dean could hear it in the way Sam said ‘Jessica’. It seemed obvious now that JJ and Henry weren’t siblings, they were cousins. Dean berated himself for not noticing earlier. It might have saved them from losing JJ in the first place.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Henry said quietly, his eyes trained on Dean. “JJ was going to pull a stupid stunt like this either way, and now we can find the Sisterhood and end them once and for all.”

Dean scowled at his son. “Are you reading my mind or something?”

Henry snorted. “No, dad, but I know that face. You wear it every time a hunt goes bad or when you lose someone. Trust me, I’ve been looking at it for nineteen years.”

Sam broke their moment with a highly pertinent question, one that had been bugging Dean since he’d heard the story of Henry’s failed first hunt with future Dean.

“You said that Jessica was going to pull something like this - sacrificing herself, running away, because of her bad relationship with...with us,” Sam glanced at Gabriel with a pained expression. “Why exactly is our relationship so bad that she would throw herself into danger like this?”

Henry sighed. He was getting tired of spilling all the secrets he’d worried would break the timeline, but if crazy Deborah was right, it was already broken, so he steeled his nerves and gestured for his family to take a seat.

“It’s kind of a long story….”

 

 

 

It was an average ordinary day when Gabriel left.

Henry got up in the morning, checking his backpack for everything he needed for school, hauling it into the kitchen where his dads were making breakfast, Dean at the stove with Castiel curled around him. Dean was already dressed, frying up the last batch of eggs, and Castiel was sleep wrinkled in nothing but a grey shirt and a pair of boxers.

Henry would complain about the open affection between his parents but he’d learned early that not every kid had parents who loved each other. That not every kid could live in a home that wasn’t under a constant barrage of screams, thrown kitchenware, and the threat of physical abuse.

So while it was gross on a fundamental teenager level, Henry wasn’t going to try and stop it.

He grabbed the plate of eggs his dad offered and sat at the table, eating quickly as he checked his chemistry grades on his phone. Sam wandered in, herding a half-asleep Jessica who pouted as she sat at the table and pulled a bowl closer before serving herself some cereal.

Henry should have noticed there was something wrong when he saw Sam share a significant glance with Dean who stilled briefly.

“You kids want a ride to school?” Dean suddenly offered, disentangling himself from his husband who looked equally concerned. Henry glanced up quickly. Dad driving them to school meant an extra thirty minutes to eat breakfast and finish homework.

“I can take Jessica,” Sam said suddenly, and it was like a stone sunk into Henry’s stomach. Sam looked distraught and Henry could practically feel the waves of anxiety rolling off his uncle. “We need to have a little family chat anyway.”

Jessica seemed to wake up at that, her eyes blinking rapidly as she sat up from where she had slunk down onto the table. “We do?”

Sam’s mouth was tight and he nodded. “Get your stuff ready and meet me in the garage, okay sweetie?”

Jessica nodded mutely, clearing away her breakfast before heading down the hallway towards her room. Sam sighed, spared one last glance for his brother before following Jessica, head hanging low.

Henry turned his attention back to his breakfast with an intensity he only ever used when he tried to eavesdrop. He wasn’t disappointed as he heard the murmured conversation start between Dean and Castiel in the corner. He could feel Castiel’s eyes on him and he kept his gaze firmly on his plate.

“He left last night, I don’t know why he didn’t stay to say goodbye to Jessica,” Castiel rumbled, sighing. He was clearly disappointed.

“You know Gabe. He’s already decided this may not end well, and I don’t think he wanted to have a heavy last goodbye with his daughter,” Dean whispered. “If we’d had any more notice I would have made him tell her himself - but it’s… it’s Lucifer and  _ Michael,  _ he’s never made the smart decision when those two are involved.”

Henry felt ice fill his veins. The only Lucifer and Michael he knew of were the ones Jack had told him had been sealed in the Apocalypse World when Jack was younger.

“But he’s the only one who can seal up the rift between the dimensions for good,” Castiel admitted, looking resigned. “I know Rowena’s helping as much as she can, but unless Gabriel finds a quick solution, or finds Chuck, this may take years.”

“Yeah,” Dean signed, placing the dirty breakfast dishes in the sink with a clatter. “But how could he do this to his little girl?”

Castiel sent a significant glance to Henry. “I don’t know.”

Henry wasn’t surprised that Jessica wasn’t at school. The car was still gone when he got home in the afternoon and Dean and Castiel wandered the bunker with haunted expressions. Mary swung by that evening and wrapped her grandson in a firm hug.

When Jessica and Sam came back, Henry caught the change in his younger cousin immediately. She sneered at him as she passed him in the kitchen before hightailing it down to her bedroom and slamming the door with an ominous and echoing thud.

And the change was there to stay. Gone was the innocent and bubbly personality, full of bright smiles and infectious laughter - the Jessica from before was simply gone. She snapped at everyone to call her JJ, she hissed like a wounded cat when someone brought up Gabriel, and she stopped referring to Gabriel at all - if she did it was no longer the bright and happy, “Daddy!” but the stiff and impersonal, “My father.”

Henry could tell that it broke Sam’s heart every day to see his sweet and caring baby girl like that. JJ was no longer a child, she had grown up too fast in the empty spaces where her father should have been.

It was no surprise to Henry that she continued to throw herself recklessly into the hunter’s lifestyle. JJ was floundering - as a Nephilim, as a hunter, and as a daughter. She tried dangerous attempts to use her powers only to have them backfire, leaving her wounded and even more angry. She threw herself into being a hunter with reckless abandon despite having less training than both Jack and Henry.

And she lashed out at Sam with a disturbingly increasing frequency, and Henry could see Sam’s heart break behind his eyes a little more every time JJ railed at Sam, shouting “You don’t understand! You never understand!”

It was obvious to everyone -- Gabriel’s sudden departure had broken her.

 

 

 

Henry finished his summation of events with a sigh at the broken looks on his family’s faces. Even Mary looked ready to cry, and watching your grandmother cry was never a pleasant experience. Henry didn’t know what to do - he was only 19, out of his time, and in serious danger of destroying his own personal timeline if the awkward looks Dean kept shooting Castiel were any indicator.

It was Jack who finally broke the silence.

“So let’s change it,” he said simply, looking at the others with a determined expression. “Let’s stop the Sisterhood now, save JJ, send them back to their own time, and we can figure the rest out later.”

Gabriel’s eyes gained a spark and he stood up a little taller.

Jack continued, his hope infectious. “We can make a better future.”

Dean mulled over the suggestion, tilted his head, and pulled a tiny smirk. “Team Free Will 3.0? I think that has a great ring to it.”

 

 

 

The first step to stopping the Sisterhood was finding them, and Gabriel was livid, pacing the floor as Dean and Sam debated between themselves the best way to locate angels who had been off the radar for centuries. Castiel didn’t have any ideas either and he watched their hushed conversation with keen eyes. 

Sam sighed and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes before leaning his head back and looking at the ceiling as if asking Chuck why this was his life.

“We need Rowena,” he said finally, looking at his brother with a thin lipped grimace. Gabriel halted his pacing.

Henry just felt awkward.

There was a bang as the door at the top of the stairs opened and slammed into the wall. A smug Scottish voice floated down like revelation from on high and everyone turned simultaneously.

“Did someone say my name?” Rowena MacLeod, dressed to the nines in a navy blue gown, leaned seductively against the door frame. She moved to the side as a gaggle of hunters shuffled in, arms fully loaded down with bags of discount bargain sale clothing.

Henry gaped at Rowena with a slack jaw. She was identical to the Rowena that he knew in his own time and that was the most surprising thing of all. Henry had been terrified upon seeing younger versions of his own parents after falling out of the cupboard - but this? This was a new kind of frightening.

Rowena really was the most powerful witch they would ever know.

Descending the stairs like a debutant, Rowena looked at the assembled group with a keen eye. Henry felt the moment her eyes landed on him and knew she was looking at him with magic behind her gaze. Her eyebrows rose comically, and she paused as the last of the hunters shuffled past her, their own eyes avoiding the assembled group awkwardly.

“I take the motley crew out for a field trip and everything goes topsy-turvy -- what am I ever going to do with you,” she sighed, finally approaching before coming to a stop behind Henry. Her hands came to rest gingerly on the back of his chair before she glanced down at him. He pointedly avoided turning around to face the witch, hands balled into fists in his lap.

“And who’s the handsome boy?”

Henry stiffened as a hand ran through his hair gently.

Everything was complicated and he hated the way that Sam watched with a pained expression. Henry’s Rowena was a close family friend, an aunt, a part of their family. But right now? Henry could feel the tension between Sam and Gabriel the minute Rowena walked into the room - he could have cut it with a butter knife.

Dean, surprisingly, was the one who answered. “His name is Henry,” Dean swallowed hard, “...he’s my son...from the future.”

Henry could practically hear the smirk in Rowena’s voice as she scraped her nails gently against his scalp. He felt a pleasant shiver run down his spine.  _ “Och,  _ I knew that already just from lookin’ at the poor boy, but I wanted to hear you say it.”

Sam flared his nostrils as he took a deep breath. “Rowena, we need your help.”

“Of course you do, Samuel,” she sighed, her hand retreating from Henry’s hair as she moved around to the table. “You need to find someone, I’m sure. Well, run along and get me the ingredients, I’m sure it’s the least you could do for my assistance.”

Gabriel turned to her then, eyes hard. “Angels, Rowena. We need you to find angels.”

If Rowena’s eyebrows hadn’t already been in her hairline by that point, Henry was sure they were now. “Angels, you say? Well then, I’ll need a few extra pieces to get the spell working. “

Sam grit his teeth and Henry could practically hear his jaw crack with the effort.

“I’ll get down to the storage room and start gathering everything. Do you already have a list of the extra ingredients you’ll need?” Sam glared at Rowena who evaluated him with a cool expression.

Rowena took a moment where she glanced between Sam and Gabriel as if she was calculating the outcome of her next sentence. Then she seemed to reevaluate herself before a sly smile snuck onto her features. “Actually, Samuel, I think I’ll join you. Remind me where the storage room is?”

Henry’s stomach filled with dread and he watched as Gabriel’s eyes tracked the two figures until they disappeared from the Library, down the stairs and into the hallway, his uncle’s face tight with mistrust and suspicion.

Henry sighed. Things were definitely complicated.

  
  


 

Sam wanted to be anywhere but the storage room with Rowena, but here he was. It was testament to his determination to find Jessica that he hadn’t already given up and left - because Rowena was talking and she wouldn’t  _ stop. _

“You know, Samuel, it’s interesting that Dean has a child from the future. You wouldn’t happen to have a  _ wee bairn _ running around in the future now too, would you?”

Sam felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Rowena’s eyes watched him from the side, a sly smile on her painted red lips. She was pushing the envelope, Sam could feel it, and he could feel all his agitation at her...tryst with Gabriel pushing up under his ribcage.

But it wasn’t like Sam had any claim on Gabriel to begin with - and having a daughter from the future fall into their laps didn’t necessarily mean she was a permanent fixture in their future - it wasn’t as if Sam and Gabriel had hit it off, even after Gabriel’s return.

He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves, turning to face Rowena as she nonchalantly pulled jars from the shelves, placing them into a bag she’d procured from somewhere.

“Yeah, actually,” Sam huffed. “I do. Her name is Jessica, and the angels we’re trying to track down want to sacrifice her to an ancient entity known as the Nether. So, if you could hurry it up a little, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Rowena paused, a sadness crossing her features and Sam suddenly felt like a dick. He knew she was still mourning the loss of Crowley, but he was still mad enough about her moment with Gabriel that he didn’t even think twice about taking his anger out on her, because the subject of children was one he knew would hurt the worst.

Rowena replaced the jar in her hand on the shelf and crossed her arms, facing Sam like they were in a standoff, only she leaned a shoulder against the shelf and cocked her head to evaluate Sam carefully.

“I’m sorry I had a... _ fling _ with your Archangel, is that what you want me to say?” Her voice was cold and stiff. “Because if this is about Gabriel, he and I both knew it was just for fun. I’m a witch, he’s a recovering pagan.”

Sam snorted. That was one way to put it.

_ “And,”  _ Rowena stressed, “we both knew that if you so much as gave him the time of day, Gabriel would have left me in a heartbeat. And if his expression upstairs was anything to go by,” her thick brogue grew heavy, “...he already has.”

Sam’s stomach dropped through the floor and his heart thudded dully.

“Now if we’re all done throwing cold shoulders around like we’re horny teenagers, I’ll thank you to help me finish gathering ingredients to find your little girl and the angel death cult."

Sam meekly moved forward to help Rowena gather ingredients.

  
  
  


The assembled group crowded around Rowena who sighed, shaking her head of luxurious red curls. She hadn’t wanted to let them watch her work but Dean was insistent, and here they were - crowding her space, making her feel claustrophobic, and reminding her that she was an expendable Winchester asset.

Really, four hundred some odd years of witchcraft, it wasn’t fair that she was relegated to a  _ sidekick _ for some flannel wearing neanderthals. No more Grand Coven, no more Book of the Damned, just Rowena and the Black Grimoire that she had to keep stealing back from the Winchesters like an eternal game of tug-of-war.

“Now, am I looking for the Angels or for the Nephilim?” Rowena asked, glancing at Gabriel who was glaring at the map on the table as if it could take him to their destination by force of will alone.

“...Both?” Dean sound unsure but it was the best answer Rowena could get from the assembled awkward crew.

The one from the future, Henry, held out a bloody jacket. Rowena looked at it with a confused expression.

“And what am I supposed to do with this?”

“It’s JJ's. It belonged to her. And it was touched by the Sisterhood in the future. It should work for your location spell.” Rowena arched an eyebrow at his succinct response. He was a smart boy and his determination was admirable.

She took the jacket and placed it into the bronze bowl where she’d assembled the ingredients for the location spell. She waved her hands over it, letting the magic flow through her as she chanted, the Latin sliding from her lips like water until she grabbed a pinch of dried feverfew and dashed it into the entire mixture. The jacket and spell ingredients went up in smoke.

The map lit itself on fire and the edges burned away until only a small circle was left, about the size of a quarter, circling the dot on the map that belonged to Denver, Colorado.

Gabriel swore, picking up the quarter sized scrap of map. “Well I’ll be damned. I know where they are.”

  
  
  


There was a forest outside of Denver, below a peak called Sheeprock. It was apparently an important Angel Landmark - important enough that the extra magic inherent in the earth there would be enough to use Jessica’s grace to open a rift just in time to sacrifice her to the waiting Ancient Being.

But somehow it still didn’t make sense that Sam was alone in a car with Gabriel while Dean, Cas, Jack, and Henry had all piled into the Impala.

It’s not that he didn’t want to be alone with Gabriel  _ per se… _ No, no he  _ definitely _ didn’t want to be alone with Gabriel. Not right now. Not with twenty-five years worth of revelations having been brought to light in a single night. Not with  _ their daughter’s _ life in the balance. And those two words would never cease to amaze him.

Sure, the mechanics were terrifying, but since neither of the angels had freaked out, Sam was sure there was some supernatural answer to two guys, and two angels in male vessels having kids.

But beyond that - he and Gabriel had a  _ kid. _

_ Together. _

Just that morning Sam had been thinking that he’d lost all his chances with Gabriel because the Archangel was focused on their resident red-haired witch. But now… Gabriel was fidgeting in the passenger seat, watching the tail lights of the Impala with record concentration. Sam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Gabriel this quiet outside of when Ketch had brought him to them from Asmodeus’ hell prison.

“You think really loudly Samsquatch,” Gabriel finally sighed, his hand flexing. He was leaned against the window, propped up on an elbow, the lights from the passing streetlamps dropping occasional halos around his golden hair.

“Oh,” Sam fumbled, embarrassment a swooping sensation in his stomach. “Sorry, I’ll…”

But Gabriel waved him off, still resolutely staring out of the windshield.

“It’s fine, if I wasn’t an Archangel I’d be able to tell just by the impeccable bitch face you’re sporting, but unfortunately extremely loud thoughts bump into my airwaves.” He motioned to his head with wiggling fingers. “Angel radio tends to get more channels when you’re an Archangel.”

“That...sounds ominous. And also incredibly embarrassing given what… I’ve been thinking about.”

Gabriel snorted. “What? About doin’ the do? That’s not embarrassing Sam, that’s flattering. But I don’t want you to feel obligated to me because of someone from the future - just like that trip you took with Dean-o where you met your parents; one slip up could have cost you everything you ever knew.”

“So it could change.”

“If you want it to.”

Sam took a deep breath through his nostrils, steeling his nerves. Gabriel still wasn’t looking at him and Sam wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad sign. He was about to take a plunge he wasn’t sure he would have done without Jessica - but maybe, just maybe, in her original timeline he had. And it had worked out. The thought bolstered Sam’s confidence just enough for him to breathily ask, “What if I didn’t?”

Gabriel turned to him sharply, eyes hyper focused on Sam who was gripping the wheel and staring out the windshield - mainly to avoid crashing, because if he looked at Gabriel now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to look away.

“After all the shit I’ve done? A lot of it to you? Sam, I think you need to have that melon of yours checked because a sane person wouldn’t want this future. We had a kid, _and I broke her,”_ Gabriel’s voice was strained. “I ruined her life because I’m a shitty dad - but look who I had to look up to as a role model.”

Sam took a deep breath. He recognized Gabriel lashing out - Sam had done it himself on occasion. He tried to picture something positive but his mind refused to cooperate, showing him nothing but pain. Jessica’s broken expression as she was taken away. The light pouring out of the Elysian Fields Motel reflected in the rear view mirror.

Gabriel, broken, cowering, and afraid - his lips sewn shut.

“You heard Jack,” he countered gently. “We can change it. We know what future-you was looking to do, and that puts us ahead of the game by nearly a quarter of a century Gabriel.”

“How do you know I won’t just screw it up some other way?” Gabriel’s voice was small, his figure hunched over in the passenger seat, his eyes sliding away from Sam to drop to the floorboards forlornly. Sam remembered Gabriel’s face after meeting Jack for the first time, how Gabriel had seemed determined to be an uncle for Jack. To really be there, when he’d been running for so long.

“How do you know that I won’t screw it up?” Sam parried. He wasn’t giving in that easily. “After all I’m the one who popped Lucifer out of his box. I’m the boy with the Demon Blood. I started the end of the world. I failed the Demon Tablet Trials. Hell, I joined up with the British Men of Letters. I’m a pretty big screw up, Gabriel.”

He spared a glance at Gabriel and jerked, the car swerving slightly, as he saw the fire in Gabriel’s eyes. “You take that back, Sam Winchester. I have known far too many people on this earth to not recognize a good person when I see one. And I’m an Archangel and in case you missed it, Archangels are dicks. But you? You’re the farthest thing from a screw up.”

Sam felt his heart skip a beat - a thrill of warmth running up his spine.

“We made a pretty great kid, Gabriel,” Sam finally said, pushing the envelope as far as it could go before Gabriel either kissed him or killed him. “And despite it all, I like you. I like you enough to give this a shot, if you are.”

Gabriel exhaled sharply through his nose. “Okay then. Maybe we can.”

  
  
  


Henry took back every bad thing he’d ever thought about his parents’ excessively overt public displays of affection. Sitting in a car with Dean, Castiel, and Jack after watching his dads figure out they’d gotten married and had a kid together?

It was like a living nightmare.

The tape deck was broken but Dean refused to let anyone talk. Castiel kept shooting Dean furtive glances and Jack was watching curiously. Henry just wanted to die. He didn’t even get the pleasure of listening to good Zeppelin jams before facing his possibly non-existent future.

If Henry was back in his own time, a trip with Dean, Castiel, and Jack would have been spent with tunes, conversation, teasing, and watching his dads shoot sappy and affectionate smiles at each other from the backseat. And he would have jokingly moaned about the sickly sweet affair, but Dean would have chastised him and given him some line about how he was lucky his dads loved each other or he wouldn’t be around to complain about it.

Well, Henry was now facing the very real possibility that he might not be around in the future to tease them about it - and it terrified him.

But he could also see that his dads did love each other. It was frustrating that they couldn’t seem to see it themselves. Dean would glance at Castiel who was looking forward with hunched shoulders. Then he would turn away just as Castiel turned and looked longingly at Dean.

This is what his dads had been like before they’d gotten together, he realized with a tiny sense of awe. He’d heard from Sam that they’d been like lovestruck teenagers, but it was one thing to hear about it and another to witness it firsthand.

He leaned over to Jack who looked at him with interest. “Are they always like this, or is this my fault?” He whispered as quietly as possible.

“No,” Jack said slowly, “they’re always like this.”

“Always like what?!” Dean yelped, glaring at the pair in the backseat. “What are you talking about, I have no idea what you mean.”

That, at least, was a familiar expression to Henry. He’d seen his dad acting innocent on multiple occasions - when he’d eaten the last brownie and was caught out by Gabriel or Sam. When he’d promised he wouldn’t go out for burgers after a hunt, but Castiel caught him after with grease still on his fingers. Guilty Dean was a household staple in Henry’s time.

“I believe he’s referencing the tangible tension in the car,” Castiel intoned, tilting his head.

It was too easy of an opening and Henry was tired of the silence. They’d been driving for almost an hour and a half and this was the first opportunity for conversation so he took it - ready to start the awkward conversation even if it got him left on the side of the road because he’d invoked Dean’s wrath.

“No, you’re acting like teenagers, and I was just checking if my assumption that you’ve been like this for a while was correct,” Henry snarked. He felt a tiny spark of glee at Dean’s fists clenching around the steering wheel.

“In what way in particular are we acting like teenagers?” Castiel asked, the skepticism and sarcasm heavily laced through his tone. It was good to know his dad had always been a sarcastic asshole.

“Well,” Henry ploughed forward. He was the son of an extremely salty hunter and a sarcastic angel - he came by his attitude righteously. “The looking at each other and looking away was a big giveaway - but the fact that the tape deck is broken and you won’t let anyone talk, probably to avoid the elephant in the car, also known as me. Your son from the future.” He took a deep breath.

“Well forgive me for trying to process!” Dean snapped, throwing a hand in the air. He hissed as his knuckles banged against the roof of the car and Henry watched with interest as Castiel tried to reach for his hand - the intent to heal the bruised and split knuckles apparent. Dean waved him off and Henry had to wonder how hard his dad had to hit the roof to bloody his knuckles.

“No,” Henry snarked back, “you’re not trying to process - you’re trying to sublimate. You’re trying so hard you just wrecked your hand on the roof of your own damn car! That’s not processing Dean!”

“Hey!” Dean turned in his seat and jabbed a finger at Henry. “I’m your father, don’t you pull that first name disrespect bull crap on me.”

Henry felt like his eyebrows were about to vanish into his hairline as he gaped open mouthed at Dean. It was like having a case of deja vu, but in reverse. He’d had this argument with his dad once before - when he was seventeen and stupid. JJ was still in a tailspin and Henry was lashing out at the world in general because it was his only way of coping.

He’d called his dad “Dean” in a moment of anger and the exact same thing had happened - complete with dangerous finger pointing in the backseat because Dean could probably drive his car blindfolded and never crash.

Henry was speechless and his silence seemed to appease Dean who turned back around at Castiel’s insistence that Dean return his focus to the road. Jack was watching Henry with wide eyes - full of awed wonder. And that was an expression Henry never thought he’d seen on Jack in relation to himself. Jack had always been the loving brother and cousin - but he was older, and in a lot of ways Henry had always felt like the fledgling who couldn’t fly when put next to Jack.

Dean was still huffing as he turned back around but it seemed that Castiel had caught some of Henry’s irritation. “He’s not wrong, Dean. You’re uncharacteristically quiet and I can’t help but assume it has to do with whatever is between us...because of Henry.”

Dean exhaled through his nose, the dimples of discontent  plastered to his cheeks. “Look, Cas. It’s not… It’s not the kid. It’s not you. It’s just that there’s a lot going on here that I don’t know what to do with.” He paused. “I’m starting to understand what Mom probably felt when I told her I was her son from the future. You don’t get over that shit lightly.”

He glanced up and caught Henry’s curious gaze in the rearview. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want it, or don’t want him. I just can’t think about that right now when we have to save Sam’s daughter from the future while taking out a massive angel cult. Can I just have a little space to deal with one at a time?”

Henry had to admit that it was a reasonable request. It didn’t hurt that his heart was a little bit warmer knowing that Dean wanted Henry - that Henry still had a future despite his colossal failure to protect Jessica which had resulted in their entire time travel ordeal.

“Cause seriously,” Dean sighed, running a hand down his face. “When did our lives become an installment in the Back to the Future trilogy?”

Henry snorted. Yep, definitely still his dad.

  
  
  


They pulled into Colorado just after midnight, Sam’s phone reading June 7th, 2018. Sheeprock was a peak in a National Forest, and the only way up was a single winding road. There was a smattering of snow on the ground despite being early June, most likely a direct result of the massive rise in altitude and the oncoming cold front. Gabriel mentioned that the cold front was probably the fault of the Sisterhood however, and Sam was left to wonder how many weather catastrophes were supernaturally motivated.

They parked their cars on the edge of the slope and Sam could feel the prickle of magic in the air against his skin. He glanced at Gabriel who seemed to notice the same thing and frowned. “Do we have a plan?” The unusually quiet Archangel asked, glancing at the assembled group.

“Don’t get killed, get JJ, get out,” Dean responded brusquely.

Sam nodded, reaching into the trunk for the spare angel blade he kept there and pushed aside the thoughts swirling around in his head, a half formed theory bouncing around in the mess of his emotions left in the wake of Jessica’s identity reveal and his confession to Gabriel.

The pair had finished the drive in relative silence, the only sound between them had been the soft lullaby tones from the late night radio station.

But Sam had always been good at puzzles and the biggest one was right in front of him, as they marched through the cold, dark underbrush. The clock read almost two in the morning, and the mountain was still and silent.

“Does anyone else feel like we’re walking into a trap?” Cas asked quietly, and Sam could see him glance significantly at Dean. Henry nodded, looking at Jack who was the only person not armed with an angel blade.

There was a heavy pause.

And then everything happened at once.

Sam was blown backwards by an invisible force, sending him into a tree with a heavy thud that rattled his teeth. Three angels appeared from thin air and Dean was blasted back against the trunk of another evergreen. They were dressed identically to Deborah, in deep crimson ceremonial robes, and in vessels nearly as old.

One took hold of Jack, another took hold of Henry, and before Gabriel or Cas could move to stop them they disappeared in a flap of wings. Sam screamed in defiance but he couldn’t pull away from whatever had him stuck to the tree. His feet dangled in the air, kicking as he struggled.

Gabe sprinted after the third angel who swatted at him with a roll of her eyes. Gabriel went flying, skidding across the snow covered ground and sending up a spray of dirt with his impact. Sam knew that Gabriel hadn’t recovered from their Apocalypse World ordeal, and Sam struggled harder against the power holding him back, as if he could break through and run to check on the now motionless Archangel.

The angel began to circle Cas, looking him up and down curiously before she paused as if listening to a message the others couldn't hear. She grinned, a malicious twist of her lips, and threw out a hand releasing Dean and Sam from their trees. They both fell to the ground in a heap of shaking limbs. Sam tried to stand but there was an invisible barrier trapping him, forcing him to watch helplessly. Dean was equally trapped, and muttering curses under his breath.

“Deborah would like to offer you a chance to witness the beginning of a new age,” the angel said with a magnanimous wave of her hand. Sam blinked as the forest around them melted to reveal someplace new - a clearing, ringed with braziers of fire, and in the middle was a stand, almost like an olympics medal podium, holding three dark obsidian altars.

Strapped to each altar were the kids.

Jack was in the middle, on the tallest riser, unconscious and strapped down, a trickle of blood leaking from his temple. Sam’s stomach churned with worry. The one to the left was the tier that would have been second place and strapped to it’s altar was Jessica. She struggled against her bindings, but she was clearly losing momentum - and losing hope.

And the last, and lowest tier, was the smallest altar. A furiously writhing Henry straining against the leather straps across his chest, waist, and legs.

All three Nephilim had their mouths gagged, but Sam could hear the angry hissing and spitting noises coming from Henry and his chest swelled with pride. He was definitely Dean’s kid. Dean, still crumbled on the ground but conscious, was watching with furious eyes.

Cas was, surprisingly, still free and he glanced at the unconscious Gabriel every few seconds as if debating his chances of reaching his brother before the Sisterhood noticed or tried to stop him.

The Sisterhood, all seven, ringed the clearing. The leader Deborah stood at the foot of the raised platforms, a bronze chalice in her hand. Sam couldn’t see the contents, but he was willing to bet that it was filled with blood. Most likely Jack’s, or possibly a mix of all three.

“We were rejected by our brothers and sisters!” Deborah shouted, raising the chalice and the surrounding angels all echoed a cry of agreement, a haunting chorus that sent ice down to Sam’s bones. “We were neglected by our Father!” Another cry. “And we will not let this universe fumble under the misguidance of the Seraphs any longer!”

Sam wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the blood but whatever he might have imagined, he definitely hadn’t been expecting her to  _ drink it _ . He watched horrified at the sight of Deborah swallowing down the chalice of blood, a trickle escaping down each side and following the line of her throat. There was a crackle of energy as the circling angels closed their eyes and hummed in tandem, reminiscent of a chanted prayer.

As the power in the clearing shifted, Sam felt his body loosen, the invisible bindings slackening as the angels turned their attention to Deborah and the crackle of orange energy growing above her head. Sam glanced at Dean who nodded, confirming that he too was regaining his movement.

Cas took the angel’s distraction to his advantage and quietly dashed to Gabriel’s lifeless form. He sighed and glanced at Sam, signalling that Gabriel was fine, despite his unconsciousness. Sam pushed down his relief to evaluate at a later time.

He and Dean stood slowly, gripping their angel blades that had somehow made the trip with them as they’d been transported to the peak. Now that he was standing he could see a sloping drop-off at the edge of the peak, and past that the sloping sides of Sheeprock leading down into the valley.

The energy above the clearing coalesced into a familiar sight - a seam of light and energy they’d seen after Jack’s birth, and each subsequent time they’d had to travel to and from Apocalypse world in attempts to rescue Jack and Mary. Only this time the beam was wider, it was longer, and it stretched over the sky like a warped rainbow - and then it began to open.

 

 

 

Jack woke up to the unpleasant feeling of unfamiliar grace and energy warping around him. He could smell burning ozone like the crackle of electricity in thunderstorms. He could hear Henry’s voice, muffled and formless - a series of angry screams that took no shape of recognizable words.

And to his other side he could hear the quiet sniffs and sobs of Jessica, muffled as much as Henry.

And then Jack opened his eyes.

Above him stretched a split in the sky - a portal to another world. It yawned like a mouth, and through it he could see the other gateways like he’d seen when he’d dreamwalked with Derek. And then there was movement, a shadow across the other rips in the universe, something massive and formless. And Jack was frightened.

He hadn’t been frightened like this before - not even when he was first born and he hadn’t known Sam or Dean and things were scary and unfamiliar and new. This was a fear born of seeing something beyond his understanding. And Jack knew it had to stop.

He glanced down and saw Deborah beyond his feet, mouth bloody and grin manic. She looked almost like a vampire, with heavy red smeared across her face and down her neck. She was watching the tear across the sky with delight, and Jack felt himself boil over with rage.

This angel didn’t just want to destroy his family, she wanted to destroy the world. All for the sake of vanity, pride and power.

A rush of heat swept over Jack and his vision went white as power pulsed from his being, shattering his bindings and sending Jessica and Henry flying off their respective perches and rolling into the snow capped grass. Jack sat up quickly and smiled fiercely at the surprised and furious expression crossing Deborah’s face.

“It’s over,” he said firmly, his tone dangerous. He saw his family moving in tandem and felt the flare as they took out members of the Sisterhood one by one, each angel flaring out with a blaze of light and a scream beyond human hearing.

“No!” Deborah shrieked, throwing away the empty bronze chalice she’d been holding. “You’re not going anywhere Son of the Morning!” She reached a hand out and Jack felt her power push against him but he ploughed forward. He was dimly aware of Henry hauling Jessica to her feet before ushering her back to Sam, who held the girl with a fierce protectiveness Jack had seen Sam use back when Jack had been a newborn.

It was part of being a family.

You protected the people who belonged in your family. Jack turned back to Deborah and glared. “You’re not going to take my family, and you’re not going to hurt my home.”

“It’s too late!” She cackled and Jack looked up to see a shadow of something like a tentacle peel back the edges of the portal. 

_ “No!” _

Jack’s consciousness flared white with rage again, and he thrust his hands towards Deborah, willing with his entire being for Deborah to disappear and the rift between worlds to close. He missed the pulse of golden energy bursting from his skin in a radius around the clearing but he did see Deborah crumple under the force before something extraordinary happened.

There was a scream and he watched with surprise as the tentacle made of shadows and stars reached through the portal and wrapped up Deborah who shrieked before the phantom retreated with Deborah in it’s curled grip and the portal closed behind it.

There was silence once more as the crack sealed itself shut and Jack took a breath. He turned back to his family with excitement and froze as he saw Dean and Sam holding their respective children with immense sadness on their faces.

Both Henry and Jessica were glowing with a golden light as they began to disappear.

 

 

 

Jessica was cold and Sam’s heart was breaking. He cradled the teenager in his arms and felt as if his entire world was ending. And he barely even knew her, but he loved her. He could see all of the best of him in her, and in the end that was all parenthood could be - watching someone take all of the best of you and doing something great with it.

“I’m sorry daddy,” she whispered, with tears running down her face. Sam was surprised to see her looking up at Gabriel who was hovering over his shoulder unsure. At her words Gabriel dropped to his knees next to Sam immediately, his hands reaching out to smooth away a strand of hair from her face. She was only a child - she was only seventeen, and Sam’s heart was breaking.

“Oh no baby girl, it’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I made a mistake and you’re paying for it.” He ran a hand down her face, brushing at her tears with his thumb. Sam’s heart lurched painfully in his chest.

“Dad - Dad,” she gasped, looking up at Sam then who paid extremely close attention. “I love you, please don’t be mad at me.”

Sam’s failed attempts at keeping it together finally gave way as tears rolled down his face. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head. “Of course not sweetie,” he said softly. “You are always forgiven - I could never stay mad at you.”

“But I did a bad thing,” she whispered, more tears rolling down her face. Sam tried not to look at her legs which were see-through and practically gone. “I’m the reason daddy left.”

“No baby girl, no,” Gabriel broke in quickly, but Jessica shook her head vehemently, her hair tumbling every which way.

“No, I am,” she insisted, her tone growing more serious. “I’m the reason the barriers between the worlds grew thin and why the Sisterhood came for us. After I was born, daddy didn’t notice it because he didn’t know. There’s a book, I found it in the storage room today. I think it has...a spell to fix it.” She smiled weakly as a few more tears rolled down her face. “Please don’t be mad at each other either,” she added reaching up to pat Sam on the side of his face.

His heart broke into tiny pieces as she slowly disappeared, fading into nothing, a soft whispered, “I love you,” trailing after her on the breeze.

  
  
  


Dean was panicking - the son he’d just met and learned about was fading away. It was some real cosmic bullshit that Dean’s life was like an installment of Back to the Future - complete with accidentally disappearing because your parents didn’t get together. Except in this case, he was George McFly. Or was he Lorraine?

He held Henry, propping him up as Henry coughed and tried to put on a brave smile. Cas was propping Henry up on the other side, a hand brushing their son’s hair gently.

“Sorry, I guess,” Henry coughed. “I probably screwed everything up and this is me disappearing because now I’m never going to be born. Right?” He glanced at Dean who internally flailed at the accusation.

“I don’t know kid, but I think you’re going to be fine in the future, just you wait and see.” Dean’s tone was rough, his voice strained around the heavy emotions he couldn’t express. He wasn’t ready to be a father - but he wanted to be. And having a kid like Henry was an opportunity Dean never thought he would have.

He felt Jack kneel next to him, Jack’s hand reaching out to grip Henry’s.

“I’m sorry,” Jack’s voice was thick and Dean jerked his head around to stare in awe at Jack in tears, snot running down his face, his hand holding Henry’s tightly. “I didn’t mean to, this is all my fault.”

“No way,” Henry teased back, smile full of affection. “It’s at least half my fault. But it’s okay Jack, we’re going to be okay. We are, aren’t we?” He glanced at his dads and Cas nodded stiffly.

“We’re going to be fine,” Cas said firmly, and Dean was even more surprised to see tears leaking from the corners of his angel’s eyes. “So don’t apologize, Henry. We’ll meet again soon.”

“I love you,” the admission ripped from Dean like a punch to the chest. He was looking at both Cas and Henry and Henry smiled, like he knew. (He probably did, the cheeky kid.) Cas smiled, tearful and hopeful, and Dean tried not to cry harder as Henry disappeared leaving nothing but air between them.


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after.

“Dean.”

Dean glanced up from the book in his lap to see Cas hovering awkwardly in the doorway to his room. Dean replaced his bookmark and threw the book on Nephilim at the bedside table with an attempt at casualty. “Hey, Cas,” he greeted, putting on a strained smile.

Cas took his acknowledgement as an invitation and he crossed the threshold, moving to sit next to where Dean was reclining on the bed, his back to the headboard. Dean was surprised to note that Cas was dressed down for the first time since he’d been human. It was a good look on him, the dark jeans and a shirt that Cas must have raided from the laundry room.

Dean tried to settle his stomach as it jumped through a series of acrobatics as he realized the shirt was his.

“Nice, uh,” Dean stumbled over his words, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Nice clothes. What made you decide to go for a new look?”

Cas fidgeted with his fingers, avoiding looking at Dean who watched calmly, waiting for Cas to tell him exactly what was going on in his head. Dean had never been particularly good at reading the angel and he could tell that this was a moment to avoid jumping to conclusions.

“I...realized that I’d been distancing myself from...everyone,” Cas admitted, hesitating a second longer on  _ everyone _ that had Dean’s heart skipping a beat. “This is my...body now. It’s only retained an image of Jimmy but given it’s been remade…” Cas thought for a long moment then sighed. “Four times? Five? I’ve lost count, but the point is that I’m learning to accept myself and...my place here.”

Dean swallowed hard. “And what exactly have you figured out about your place here?”

Cas finally turned, meeting eyes with Dean, whose breath caught in his throat. The deep blue of his shirt on Cas was mesmerizing, and Dean was certain that he never wanted Cas to stop wearing it. As far as he was concerned, it was Cas’ shirt now.

“My place…” Cas trailed off, his eyes flicking towards Dean’s mouth and Dean couldn’t help the flick of tongue that darted out across the seam of his lips in response. His stomach was alight with sparks that danced like the pleasant glow of Independence Day sparklers. He watched Cas who watched him and he waited with baited breath.

“My place is with you.”

Uncontained warmth flooded Dean from head to toe and he slid forward on the bed until he was practically nose to nose with Cas who didn’t budge, watching him with his piercing blue eyes the entire way as Dean huffed a small breathy laugh and he smiled. “I hoped you’d say that,” he mumbled quietly before closing the gap and sealing his mouth over Cas’ waiting lips.

Dean tumbled head over heels into the kiss, his heart jumping in with both feet as if he were falling, tumbling down into the love he’d had waiting all this time. It wasn’t until he felt the gentle press of Cas’ tongue against his lips, soft and sweet, that he realized he wasn’t falling at all -- he was flying.

His hand reached up and he cupped the side of Cas’ face, fingers curling into the hair that had grown a little long behind the ears, his thumb brushing against the rough stubble that was a new feeling in a kiss, but not entirely unpleasant. Cas kissed like a man at worship. His lips, that were slightly rough and chapped, tugging insistently at Dean’s own.

Dean smiled into the kiss, breaking away slowly with a tug at Cas’ bottom lip, eliciting a heady and breathy moan from deep in the back of Cas’ throat. He kept his eyes closed, his hand moving to the back of Cas’ neck, pulling his head closer until they were leaning - forehead to forehead - breath warm and damp between them.

“Is that a yes?” Cas asked, pulling away to look at Dean with hopeful eyes. Dean felt a pang of regret, sharp as an angel blade, cutting through his heart he tugged Castiel closer and cupped his face with both of his hands.

“It was never a question, Cas,” he whispered fervently, firmly, and finally. He had a lot to make up for - all the times he’d pushed Cas away because of his own self-doubt, the years of mixed signals, and the monumental task of overcoming this final shared heartbreak of losing a son they had yet to truly know.

But looking at the bright blue eyes so full of open love and affection, Dean couldn’t have been more excited to make things right.

  
  
  


Sam found Gabriel in the storage room.

He was cross-legged on the floor, a large tome in his lap, staring at the page it was open to with a blank, faraway expression. Sam pulled up one of the chairs he’d originally brought in when he’d been researching with Jessica, and sat down, waiting for Gabriel to acknowledge him - or yell at him, he wasn’t sure which.

Instead, the Archangel sighed, closing the book but keeping it in his lap, his hands braced against the enormous cover.

“She was right, you know.”

Sam tilted his head, unsure what Gabriel meant. Gabriel finally glanced up, and caught Sam’s eyes with his own, the honey-gold color practically glowing with his renewing grace.

“The border between worlds is a tentative thread at best,” Gabriel explained, keeping Sam locked in place by his piercing gaze. “When an Archangel Nephilim is born, that thread tears and it takes a whole hell of a lot to patch it back up again.”

“Like with Jack,” Sam piped in, the dawning he’d had before Sheeprock settling back into place. “He opened a rift that we kept opening when we tried to save him and Mom.” Like the rift they had closed on Michael and Lucifer only a few short days before. It felt like it had been an eternity since then, and Sam scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Exactly,” Gabriel replied, his expression serious. “This last time, when Rowena held the door open for us, the strain it put on the tear caused the forces to invert and snap itself shut, rather than just drifting closed like it had the previous times. Which is why we haven’t had Luci and Douchebag Michael knocking down our doors.”

“The spell we were using - it’s conditional?”

Gabriel nodded. “Part of the reason it needs Archangel grace. But Nephilim are more powerful than their parents so unless you happen to have one lying around to rip open a new tear for you after the last one seals itself shut…”

Sam’s eyes widened. “You’d have to wait for the next Archangel Nephilim to be born.”

“Give the kid a prize,” Gabriel confirmed sullenly.

“And by the time Lucifer and Michael on the other side figured it out, it had been, what… fourteen years? Enough time for them to test their theory and miss jumping to our world a few times?”

Gabriel wordlessly offered the book to Sam who took it, the weight of it in his hands somehow bearing down on his already heavy mental burden. He opened to the page that had the marker and raised his eyebrows at what he saw.

“A spell to seal off the worlds forever? Is that even possible?”

Gabriel’s brows rose and he tilted his head. “Read the ingredients.”

Sam’s eyes travelled down the page, glancing over the listed items. A few were easy to procure because they already had them - fruit from the tree of life, griffin feathers, sand from the Holy Land - but others were things Sam had never even heard of.

“A Lesson Learned In Blood? Three Truths of Intent? Is this like the Demon Tablet Trials?” He looked at Gabriel with his eyebrows drawn together. “And then there’s things like the cloak of Elijah - how are we supposed to find that?”

Gabriel waved his hand. “Leave the obscure stuff to me, I’ve got connections and since I’m going back to being an Archangel I might as well use them. As for the metaphysical, think of it less like trials or ingredients and more like steps to the spell itself.” Sam tried, but he couldn’t quite picture it. Gabriel barrelled on. “We’re sealing ourselves off into our own pocket universe. This spell doesn’t stop the other worlds from interacting, it just cuts us off from everyone else.”

“And from Lucifer and Michael.”

“Bingo.”

Sam’s stomach did a tiny flip. He was almost nauseous. This was his chance to make everything right - to seal off Lucifer and Michael forever. But he couldn’t help but remember the graveyard, the yawning pit beneath his feet, and the fall into the cage. Back when Sam had jumped into the cage, he’d had the same intentions: stop the bad. Instead he’d only made things worse. Would trying to stop the future they’d glimpsed through Jessica bring similar misfortune?

Sam jerked as a rolled up piece of paper hit him square in the forehead. He looked up from the book at Gabriel who was looking at him with a soft and teasing smile. “Come on Samsquatch, leave the doom and gloom to people like Dean who brood like it’s their day job. It’s not a good look for you.”

Sam rolled his eyes but there was a smile fighting for dominance at the edge of his mouth. “Well sorry if I’m rationally concerned, given that our history with the devil hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.”

“I’ll admit, that’s partly my fault.”

Sam looked at Gabriel who had reverted to depressingly serious, his shoulders curling in on themselves. He was back to avoiding Sam’s gaze and he’d started fiddling with a Chinese puzzle box that Sam had never been able to open that he’d found on the shelf. It probably had something incredibly dangerous inside given its location in the bunker, but if anyone could handle it, it would have been Gabriel.

Sam wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to assure Gabriel that it wasn’t his fault, but part of him still wondered what would have happened if Gabriel hadn’t run again back at the Elysian Fields Motel.  _ He probably would have died for real and you’d have been left for dead in Apocalypse world,  _ a traitorous fraction of his mind whispered.

And as much as he was loathe to admit it, his mind was probably right.

“Gabriel, it wasn’t your fault.” It wasn’t eloquent but it was to the point.

Gabriel, however, didn’t seem to see it that way and he curled even farther into himself. His voice was quiet as he looked away completely, his eyes trailing off to the back wall of the storage room, tension visible in every line of his body.

“I never meant for you to jump, Sam.”

It was like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. Sam’s breath grew shallow and his mind spiralled but he reached for the scar on his palm and dug his thumb into it, the pressure grounding despite years of distance from the Cage, from Lucifer, and from his own psychosis. It had been a rough year, with Lucifer back in that first vessel that had haunted Sam’s waking nightmares since before he’d ever said Yes. And for some reason, the admission from Gabriel had left him reeling far more than his own self doubt ever could.

“Hey,” Sam glanced up and jumped as he saw Gabriel only inches from his face, a hand cupping his cheek as Gabriel looked at him with an intensity Sam had rarely ever seen. “Are you back with me kiddo?”

Sam felt like he was covered in sweat, and he took a gulping breath, leaning away from Gabriel, his hand aching from where his thumb was still pressing into it. “I’m fine,” he gasped, shifting away. He tried to ignore the pained expression on Gabriel’s face as he pulled back. “I’m fine.”

“Sure you are,” Gabriel scoffed, but he didn’t press the issue, instead focusing his attention back on the book. There was a long pause as Sam collected himself, watching Gabriel from the corner of his eye.

“So if we seal up our universe,” Sam finally said, broaching the topic they were both avoiding, “...would that prevent a tear being created when…”

Gabriel looked at him for a long moment, evaluating. “When Jessica is born?”

Sam didn’t respond, his heart hammering - but not from panic. His heart was fluttering and his stomach was doing gymnastics as he looked back at Gabriel who’s face had softened into something warm and new.

Gabriel finally sighed but he was smiling. “I’m going to have to say yes.” He closed the book with a heavy thud. “So what do you say, Sam? You want to help me seal up the dickbag known as my brother for the last time?”

Sam snorted softly and felt a smile tugging at his lips as he looked over to Gabriel.

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

 

 

 

The first order of business was to collect the things they already had. Jack was all too eager to go off with Gabriel to gather the few obscure pieces of arcane memorabilia that Gabriel happened to know the locations of - the cloak of Elijah, the skull of John, and Josiah’s chalice. That left Sam, Dean, and Cas at the bunker to work on organizing the Apocalypse World hunters into an organized team - teaching them about their new universe, and figuring out how to explain that they weren’t going to get back to their own universe.

Eventually they let Mary break the news - and it went over as well as could be expected.

Unsurprisingly, Bobby was the angriest, throwing scathing insults at Sam, Dean, and even Mary, who was standing behind her boys’ decision to seal off their universe, protecting their own future. She had taken a shine to Jessica and Henry almost immediately and Mary was nothing, if not a supporter of her family.

“Besides,” Mary tried to calm the growing agitation in the room as Bobby paced, shooting glares at the assembled Winchesters. “Even if we wanted to, we learned that we wouldn’t be able to send you back until after Jessica would be born. So if things go wrong between now and then and we somehow change the future…”

She trailed off, glancing at Sam who grit his teeth. He wasn’t sure where he stood with Gabriel and while he did hope for the future he’d seen, he wasn’t so sure anymore. The group of Apocalypse world refugees seemed torn - some of them were fine staying put, while others seemed conflicted as to whether it was morally right to stay.

“We wouldn’t be able to send you back ever,” he finished, voice firm.

That seemed to crumple whatever bluster Bobby had been using to keep himself going and he collapsed, falling into a chair with the loud thump of a man who had given up. Charlie squeezed his shoulder but she didn’t seem too broken up about it. Sam was surprised - he’d expected the other Charlie to be as equally determined to get back to her own world.

But then again, their own Charlie had been happy in Oz before the disaster with the splitting spell, so he guessed that maybe she was just ready for another adventure.

“The good news is that we don’t know how long it’s going to take us to get the spell together. We have time,” Dean clarified. “We’ll talk to Gabriel when he gets back and see if there’s some way to get those of you back who want to go. But what we’re saying is - we can’t make any promises.”

Bobby nodded, glancing at Mary who smiled softly. Sam had a feeling that given enough time, the other hunters would find a way to settle into their new lives, and the constant itch to return home would dull.

They had time.

Gabriel returned frequently with Jack to visit as they searched for the artifacts for the spell. They would stay for a week at a time, before disappearing for another two or three weeks with little to no contact.

Gabriel updated the family with his progress on teaching Jack how to properly control his powers, and he would often bring small souvenirs from his travels for Mary and Sam. (Dean once complained that he was feeling left out and Gabriel brought him a live jungle cat from Egypt. Dean had freaked out upon finding it hiding in in his bed, purring and licking its paws. After that, Dean stopped complaining, but for some unexplained reason the cat stayed.)

The cat made himself at home, curled up like a rock half across Dean’s lap when they watched movies in the “Fortress of Dean-itutde”, shoving Dean closer to Cas as the cat took up the space by the armrest. Dean didn’t seem to mind, and Sam watched Dean use the excuse to sit pressed against Cas’ side, smiling softly the entire time.

Sam watched Dean over the weeks, happy to note that his brother’s relationship with his angel was progressing nicely. He caught Dean and Cas holding hands at breakfast and it made him smile. He gently teased his brother, happy with the way Dean’s face turned red, but sad that it made him remove his hand from Castiel’s, grumbling.

It took Gabriel three months of off and on visits before he found the first artifact. He burst through the door to the bunker with a triumphant yell, Jack hot on his heels.

Sam glanced up from the war table where he was working on coordinating a hunt between Maggie and Charlie out in Nevada - some kind of possible cryptid, though he was having trouble finding it in the lore.

“I have one dead prophet cloak, fresh from Israel!” Gabriel crowed, holding a steel grey goatskin cloak aloft as he skipped down the steps. He grinned at Sam as he passed. “Hiya, Sammy!” Sam smiled at the bubbly and infectious tone, watching Gabriel’s progression as he swept through the tactical room and into the library, tossing the cloak onto the table before glancing around.

“Where is everyone?” Jack asked quietly, pausing at the back of Sam’s chair. Sam glanced up at him, his heart swelling with warmth at the sight of Jack, stable, happy, and learning how to be himself.

“Uh, mom’s out with Bobby on a hunt, and Dean and Cas have been going on ‘not-dates’,” Sam joked. “They’re out having dinner at a little place in town. But don’t call it a date.”

“So they’ve gotten their heads out of their asses?” Gabe asked, jogging back in before plopping himself into a chair near Sam. Jack joined him, pulling out the chair next to Sam gently.

“Not quite,” Sam laughed. It had been a while since Gabriel’s last visit, and the positivity in the air was infectious. His heart was fit to burst at the sight of Gabriel, happy, hopeful, and energetic here, present, and Sam wanted nothing more than to…

He halted his train of thought at Gabriel’s salacious smirk that was suddenly directed at him, his heart jumping into his throat. Gabriel cleared his and turned to Jack. “Hey Jack, why don’t you go pop in on Dean and Cas and give them a good scare.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Jack peered at Gabriel with narrowed eyes. There seemed to be a moment of silent communication between the two before Jack jerked up quickly and turned towards the door. “Yes,” he said quickly. “I’ll go do that.”

He disappeared with a soft flap of wings, leaving Sam and Gabriel alone in the bunker - and for the first time Sam felt the ominous silence pressing down on him as he avoided locking eyes with Gabriel.

His endeavor was futile because Gabriel was suddenly there, pushing Sam’s laptop away from him and turning Sam’s chair around to face him before he slid into Sam’s lap gently, placing his hands on Sam’s shoulders and looking down at Sam’s gobsmacked expression.

“Hiya, Sam,” Gabriel said softly, a repeat of his earlier greeting, but the tone was heavy with a soft affection Sam hadn’t ever heard from the Trickster Archangel. “Would it be cheesy to ask if you missed me?”

Sam’s hands moved to Gabriel’s hips as the other man slid closer, one of his free hands winding into the ends of Sam’s hair at the back of his neck. He felt pleasantly warm all over, like a buzz of  _ just enough _ alcohol. “It might be cheesy,” Sam teased softly. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been staying away so long,” Gabriel murmured, his thumb brushing gently back and forth across Sam’s neck. “I really have been looking for the ingredients to the spell, but I’ve also been...trying to work some things out for myself.”

“I know,” Sam admitted quietly. And he did know. He’d been working things out for himself too while Gabriel was gone. And from the way Gabriel was acting, he assumed they’d both reached the same conclusion.

Sam took a breath and Gabriel took that moment to press their lips together.

It wasn’t fireworks, not exactly. But it was so much better. Sam felt his body go warm, a lava flow of emotions flowing through his veins as Gabriel wound his hands deeper into Sam’s hair, and Sam’s hands tightened their grip on Gabriel. They were chest to chest, and Sam gasped as Gabriel sucked lightly against his bottom lip.

He felt Gabriel smile before the the Archangel teased his tongue through the gap between Sam’s lips. It was heady and intoxicating, a rush of fire that burned and cooled at intervals, cementing them together - creating a unit where previously there had only been two separate beings.

Gabriel pulled away with a sigh, resting his forehead against Sam’s, brushing their noses together softly, inhaling a long breath as his thumbs stroked against Sam’s skin gently and affectionately, wordless declarations of love pouring from his every action.

“Look at us,” Gabriel laughed softly. “The runaways. I think we’re a perfect match.”

Sam smiled, running his nose next to Gabriel’s, pressing a brief and chaste kiss to Gabe’s lips. “We’re too similar for our own good,” he mused, eyelids fluttering as he opened them to look up at Gabriel who was watching him with an intense honey colored glow.

“Are you willing to test that theory?”

Sam grinned and he wasn’t surprised when the room around him disappeared and the soft warmth of his bed rose up to meet his back.

  
  
  


“It’s been three months,” Sam whispered into the dark, his hand trailing up and down the exposed spine of Gabriel who was watching him. They were facing each other in the bed, the only light in the room coming from under the door. It cast an eerie glow over the pair as Sam paused and brushed his thumb against Gabriel’s cheekbone, his heart lurching at how small Gabriel’s face was in his hand.

“I know,” Gabriel sighed, eyes fluttering closed. “And I know it’s going to take time, but that doesn’t stop it from sucking any less.”

“Who would have thought….” Sam trailed off rolling onto his back. Gabriel moved closer into the vacated space, pressing against Sam’s side, his arm draping itself across the sheet over Sam’s stomach. “Do you think we would have ever… if they hadn’t come back from the future?”

Gabriel half shrugged, placing his head against Sam’s shoulder. “I couldn’t answer that, because time is a funny thing. Even Dad doesn’t mess with it much. But it seemed like in their timeline things were different. But that doesn’t mean the outcome isn’t the same.”

Sam mulled his words over, his hand nestling in Gabriel’s hair. “Do you think she’ll be okay? In the future?”

“We’re building that future right now,” Gabriel replied with a smile. “I think everything will be just fine.”   
  
  
  
  
  


Jessica Joanne Winchester woke with a scream and a pounding headache. She could hear Henry screaming down the hall. Her skin was clammy and her heart was pounding but she couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming. The last thing she could recall was saying goodnight to her dads before crawling into bed with her copy of Paradise Lost that her English class was reading.

The door to her room burst open and Sam and Gabriel tumbled through, scrambling towards her bed. Sam reached her first, reaching his hands out and helping her get to a full sitting position as she gasped. 

“Hey,” Sam hushed quickly, “hey, hey - sweetie, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed, clinging to Gabriel who had appeared at her other side, pulling her close to him. “I don’t know, something’s wrong, there was a - a pulse? Some kind of energy, and I think Henry felt it too.”

Gabriel’s brow furrowed and he glanced at Sam with a significant look. “What’s the date?”

Sam yanked his phone out of his back pocket - both her dads were still dressed in their clothes from before she’d fallen asleep so it couldn’t have been very late. He glanced at the screen and his eyebrows rose sharply. “Just after midnight…. June 7th....”

“...2042.”

“Hey!” Dean appeared at the door in a fluster, eyes wide and frightening. “Did either of you two yahoos look at the date?”

Sam nodded grimly. “Yeah, we did.”

Jessica furrowed her brow, squinting between her dads and her uncle in confusion. “I don’t get it, what’s so important about today?”

Gabriel sighed, clicking his fingers. The lights in her room turned on and somehow Jessica knew that she wasn’t going to be getting much sleep. She let Sam usher her into the library, sitting down at the large oak table that had a series of scratches in the wood - D.W., S.W., M.W., C.W., J.W., and the two most recent additions - H.J.W. and J.J.W.

Henry joined her after a few minutes, looking grumpy and rumpled as he threw himself into a chair. He didn’t even crack a smile when Gabriel snapped and two mugs of warm hot chocolate appeared in front of them before their dads took seats opposite them, their faces grave.

“You look like someone died,” Jessica joked, confused and worried by the serious atmosphere. When her joke fell flat she shrunk in on herself a little, clutching her mug to her chest.

“You’re not wrong kiddo,” Dean sighed, pushing a hand through his greying hair. He and Sam looked remarkably well for their age, most likely a side effect of their joining themselves to angels, and their half-angel children.

Even Grandma Mary looked great, though she was retired now from hunting.

“What’s going on?” Henry squinted at their family. “And do we have to talk about it right now? I have class in the morning and I’m exhausted.”

“It’s probably the best time, yes,” Castiel sighed.

“Well, to explain all of this,” Sam gestured vaguely in the air, “we need to tell you a story.”

“Once upon a time…” Gabriel teased, shutting up as Sam elbowed him hard in the side. “Alright, how about a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?”

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed. “Ignore him. A long time ago when Jack was younger, he opened a cupboard in the kitchen and our whole world changed…..”

The world outside rolled on, the quiet night softly laying across Kansas, the warm June air a reprieve from the fading winter. Dean and Sam told their children a story they’d been preparing to tell for nearly twenty-five years, of hope and despair, love and loss, and a glimpse they’d seen into a future that offered them everything they’d ever wanted - family.

The Winchester’s were finally together, and together they could face anything.

**Author's Note:**

> There may be a sequel in the works. Shhhhhhh.


End file.
